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Education Music Entertainment

Colleges Secretly Test Music-Industry Project 208

Posted by samzenpus
from the area-51-flavors-and-then-some dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The music industry is still pushing Choruss, a controversial blanket-licensing scheme, but it is far less innovative than first described. Six colleges are setting it up now, but they refuse to have their names released because the issue is a political landmine — and who wants to be associated with the recording industry?"
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Colleges Secretly Test Music-Industry Project More

Colleges Secretly Test Music-Industry Project

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  • Re:Blanket licensing is never legal (Score:5, Informative)

    by TrancePhreak (576593) on Thursday November 05 2009, @05:25AM (#29992454)
    Last I heard it was legal in Canada to make a copy of a borrowed CD for yourself, as long as you don't sell it. This was the basis for the CD taxes.

  • What about... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Andorin (1624303) on Thursday November 05 2009, @05:39AM (#29992512)
    ...the people who don't listen to music, or don't want to financially support the RIAA, or have any other reason to not want to pay for this license? Is there an opt-out option? A quick glance through TFA didn't say so either way.

  • Re:Blanket licensing is never legal (Score:1, Informative)

    by Stereoface (1400061) on Thursday November 05 2009, @05:42AM (#29992532)
    The idea with that is the Blank Media Levy- It's run by the CPCC, which is the Canadian Private Copying Collective. http://www.cpcc.ca/english/index.htm [www.cpcc.ca] They're an extension of SOCAN, and the money generated from the sales goes back to the artists. It works out great for starving musicians, and in general yeah- Blank CDs are mostly used to copy copy written material. The fact is that Blanket licensing is already in use and in affect almost everywhere. Bars, Clubs, Shopping malls, Radio stations- they all pay blanket licenses to use music. The problem with this idea- letting users get a subscription to all the music they want. It has to expire. As an artist, no way would I let someone download my entire library of songs for a monthly fee. It's simply not fair. Also- if indie bands want to use burned CDs for music- they can get a rebate from the CPCC. I did it when I was starting out- used 500 CDs and got all of the rebate back... Something like 30 cents a disc back then. It really is a great system. For more information visit http://www.socan.ca/ [socan.ca]

  • Re:Blanket licensing is never legal (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 05 2009, @05:49AM (#29992578)

    According to the Canadian Copyright Act, Canadians can personally make a copy of a CD from any source (original or not). This backup is for personal use, not anyone else to use.

  • Re:Blanket licensing is never legal (Score:5, Informative)

    by DeadDecoy (877617) on Thursday November 05 2009, @05:57AM (#29992622)

    The music industry created a loophole in Canadian copyright laws when it asked for a levy on blank audio media. These $0.21 to $0.24 levies on blank media raised millions of dollars for music publishers, but also legalized copying in the digital age, to the consternation of the music industry. Canadian courts have ruled that consumers have the right to copy any recording from the original copy even those they do not personally own. This consumer right has been extended by the courts to include peer-to-peer downloads.

    Canadian Copyright Law [wikipedia.org]
    So Canadians are allowed to make copies regardless of ownership because they are already taxed for it.

  • Re:Blanket licensing is never legal (Score:2, Informative)

    by Stereoface (1400061) on Thursday November 05 2009, @07:16AM (#29993022)
    The problem with the monthly subscription is that barely any of that would go to the artist directly- essentially you'd be downloading my music for a fraction of the retail cost. It makes no sense for me other then for promotion to give massive discounts on music. Hell music in general is already discounted so much as it is. I think a monthly subscription is only fair if when the subscription ends you lose access to my music. It's a long discussion whether musicians should give away money to promote themselves, but those kinds of people can't quit their day jobs very easy.

  • Re:Blanket licensing is never legal (Score:2, Informative)

    by Stereoface (1400061) on Thursday November 05 2009, @07:24AM (#29993058)
    Well to be honest, if you don't get played on the radio- then you're not at the level to care about how important royalties are to an artist. That's fine. Indie artists and Niche artists have their following too, but generally to make a living off music you need it on the radio/charts. A correction on the SOCAN payouts- If you do get played, and counted by Neilson, your money sits with SOCAN until you sign up- if you haven't already. Your money doesn't go to another artist like you mentioned. They'll get payed for their own material.

  • Re:Blanket licensing is never legal (Score:3, Informative)

    by maxume (22995) on Thursday November 05 2009, @08:48AM (#29993502)

    3000 is probably the wrong number to use in that argument, you can get 1000 cds stamped (and printed and shipped) for $750, your sales better be awful incremental if burning blanks a few at a time makes more sense than risking the $750 for nice looking stamped discs. $1100 gets you retail ready packages.

  • Here's two other anonymous cowards (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 05 2009, @10:37AM (#29994608)

    I know two Universities testing this...because I have set up this turd.

    University of Nebraska - Lincoln
    Purdue

  • Re:Man, silly world... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Golddess (1361003) on Thursday November 05 2009, @11:43AM (#29995388)

    And roads are funded by gasoline tax NOT the compact disc tax, so your example is completely and totally irrelevant.

    Um, actually that makes GP's example very relevant.

    "Why do people think taxes are used for what they say they are?"
    "Because other taxes, such as road use taxes, actually go towards road repairs."

    Now if you had said that the taxes collected via the road use tax just ends up in a bucket with all the other taxes, which gets spent on things like roads, police, garbage collection, recycling, etc, regardless of how much each one brought into the bucket, then you'd have had a point.

    Also I paid nearly $25,000 in taxes last year.

    That figure is meaningless without some idea of your pre-tax income. For all I know that may only be half your weekly income.

Space is to place as eternity is to time. -- Joseph Joubert