UK Proposes Broadband Expansion, Plus a Music and Film Tax 262
Wowsers writes "First the tech illiterates in the UK government want to extend broadband internet connections to every home, whether it makes sense or not, then at the same time they propose a £20 per year (approx $29US) broadband tax which they claim will pay the record and film industries for their failed business models. Coincidence the two proposals are linked? And why should people be forced to pay for the failed film and music industries?"
Ask Canada (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't the Canadians pay a small tax on black CD/DVD media for a similar reason? Given the tax has been there for a while, maybe some Canadians can give their own opinions, given they're more intermediately aware of it.
Oh, and a small apology for the next bit...
Come on you Canadians, tell us what this is all aboot!
Re:Not a bad thing (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd just hoped for one second that someone in authority had actually done the math and said ...
"Let's see, 25 million homes x 20 quid = 500 million quid. We give that to the music and film industry, then tell them to STFU and leave us alone".
Ah well back to the drawing board :-(
net neutrality in the UK (Score:1, Interesting)
Speaking of the Internet in the UK, the Register reported [theregister.co.uk] yesterday:
The government today rejected any prospect of US-style "net neutrality" laws to prevent ISPs from charging online content providers for traffic prioritisation, or from restricting bandwidth-hungry protocols such as BitTorrent.
Right. I suppose Great Leader will need to have his new FCC guy [theregister.co.uk] straighten them out.
Re:Reiteration (Score:2, Interesting)
It's in the best interest of IPSs to offer broadband to as many people as they can before they encounter diminishing returns. This means by definition costs for ISPs will go up.
Costs for ISPs will also go up, because of the data monitoring infrastructure ISPs will have to implement.
On top of that, Cost will continue to go up for ISPs because, they will have to pay to have the data monitoring infrastructure over-seen by the government.
All three cost hikes will inflate consumer costs. This reminds me of the "No Child Left Behind" initiative.
Also notice that the infringement initiative only concerns music and film, as if those are the only copyrights that matter. Sorry software and all forms of literature, you don't deserve protection, because you don't increase the utility of our society... Oh wait.
Re:Pay the bands, not the music industry (Score:3, Interesting)
Amazon/Play/HMV/iTunes (Score:2, Interesting)
Something tells me that these companys would have even bigger influence than our UK's MPIAA/RIAA (BMI?) in lobbying to get such legislation passed once it becomes apparent that *their* business model is under threat.
In the future I may welcome this, however at the moment, I do not think there's any way the money could be divided fairly between artists and considering the state of our economy at the moment, that's just too many lost jobs for the government to create.
Re:Not a bad thing (Score:5, Interesting)
we could do away with all the ISP torrent throttling / shaping, and all the frivolous lawsuits (which lets face it, we pay for anyway in terms of other taxes).
You don't need money for that. You need legislation.
Just make fair use cover p2p for personal use.
That's what Hungary does, and it works great.
Re:Not a bad thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Virgin Media supposedly just tried to set up a legal filesharing system for subscribers. Everything was apparently going well until the last minute, when Sony & Universal decided they liked everything about the plan except the actual 'sharing files' aspect:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/23/virgin_puts_legal_p2p_on_ice [theregister.co.uk]
Re:Amazon/Play/HMV/iTunes (Score:5, Interesting)
This £20/year tax isn't going to suddenly make it legal to engage in filesharing - it'll just pay for a government department (or, more likely, a quango) to prosecute you for doing so.
So not only is it still illegal to share files, you're also paying for the privilege of being prosecuted for it.
Re:But that isn't the case. (Score:3, Interesting)
that's not the only people who lose out. Small businesses will lose out.
I sell on-line. Not a huge amount, but enough to pay my bills. If a tax is introduced to compensate content creators for lost income, do you think the UK government will cut me a proportionate slice of it? I doubt it. What will happen is that the tax will be paid to businesses over some lower limit (maybe a few million income a year) and everyone else will be ignored, or red-taped into oblivion.
So such a system will just entrench big business, and kill off the little guy.
A tax is not the answer. Doing away with DRM and frivolous lawsuits on end users, whilst cracking down on the big, high profile warez site hosters and uploaders is the best solution that doesn't involve destroying an entire industry or trashing everyone's civil rights.
Re:Uhm.. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Ask Canada (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:NuLabour? New Tax! (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyone know how much the recording industry have donated to the NuLabour party? Nuff said.
No. I don't. So I guess that there's not "Nuff said." Please tell us.
And stop with the "ZaNuLiarBore" crap, it makes you look like a twat from the Daily Wail or The Register forums.
--Ng
Just make it torrents legal (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Make sure you only have one torrent for each thing.
2) Index sensibly. Hyperlink related/reference/influenced by/influences items.
3) Burn in your own logo top right on each movie/episode.
4) Charge a tiny amount for each download. Or (better perhaps) charge for advertising space.
Why don't people learn from AllOfMp3? If it's cheap enough and a good service, people can't be bothered to pirate. If just looking at the site is generating income, even better.
Sure people will copy among themselves, but you can't stop that, and will cause problems for yourself it you try. If there is a logo burnt in, it's just free advertising anyway.
Distribute the advertising income according to where people are spending their time on the site (i.e. hit show).
Re:Ask Canada (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, in my country you can fill out a form where you have to put down in detail what you burned on the CD, it will be checked and if approved, you may, some time in the not so near future, get your "tax" back.
This form has to be mailed, one form per mail, for a refund of a few cents. Now take into account the price for a stamp and you know what this "fair agreement" is worth...
Re:Failed? (Score:3, Interesting)
They are failing. As much as SCO was failing. When your business model is a service nobody needs anymore, you have a problem. And while SCO's problem was unsolvable, the music industry actually could adapt to the change. They have a key position in PR and marketing, they can make your CD the number one hit, no matter what kind of crap you make (proof: take a look at the charts). That's where their place is and that's how they can continue their business without a problem.
They should simply disconnect from the record sales. Instead of buying artists, sell to the artist. So the burden of defending copyright is on the artist's shoulders. This would first of all immediately squelch all claims that "it's not the artist I'm stealing from, it's that huge, faceless conglomerate that rips the artist, too". And it would mean they get their money, P2P copying or not.
Yet they cling to an outdated model that can't be justified anymore, propped up by laws that are not in sync with the demands of the people. And last time I checked, laws should meet the demands of the people in a democracy.