Prove to me the artists get the money...

[acroyear]

...and I might be willing to pay the fine.

Slashdot | Canadian Copyright Group Wants iPod Tax:

"Unable to define memory as a 'recording medium,' Canada's Private Copyright Collective goes directly after portable music player devices [CC] [MD] [GC], memory cards, and anything else that can be used to make private copies. The PCC submitted a proposal to the country's Copyright Board that suggests levies of $5 (Canadian) on devices with up to 1GB of memory, $25 for 1-10 GB, $50 for 10-30 GB, and $75 for over 30 GB. If approved, this propoal would increase the price of a 30-GB iPod by 26%. These collections are intended to compensate artists and labels for the losses they suffer when people 'illegally' copy or transfer music. The PCC is also seeking a new $2 to $10 tax on memory cards. The backbone of digital photography has become tangled up in the fight for making sure music companies get every nickel and dime they feel that they deserve."

Seriously, there is no evidence at all that the labels (almost all American, btw) will actually give a dime to the artists on top of their existing contracts.

The "standard recording contract" pays the artist an upfront advance that is recouped from the royalties (usually a meager 12-14%, some of which may go to the engineer or the producer). IF and ONLY IF that advance is recouped in full (and record labels have tons of accounting tricks to assert that even a million-seller didn't "recoup") will the artist actually start seeing real royalty payments come in. (BTW, through all of this and beyond, the label owns the music, not the artist.)

There is nothing in the artist contract that actually has allowances for when extra "fees" collected on behalf of the artists of the label actually is applied to the payment of the advance. There is nothing in the accounting systems of a record label that will actually distribute such collected fees back to the artists of the label, either as cash or as applied to the advance.

The label keeps the money, most of which is either pure profit (it didn't cost them anything except paying the lobbyist) or at least is applied to the "general fund" which is used to pay the advance for the next standard artist's standard contract, and the legalized slavery continues unabated.

Unless the law goes against the labels as well, requiring that they show proof that they have changed their contracting and accounting systems to actually give an acceptable cut of this income to the artists, then all that has happened is that the legislation has totally bought into the lies and deceits of the music industry, and is sanctioning theft of both the artists AND the consumers.

Comments

[thelongshot.livejournal.com]

How is this any different than the surcharges that are currently on blank media, like cassettes and CDs, or recordable devices?

This is just an extention of the payments that already get made to the record companies. And no, there probably isn't anything that says that they have to give it back to the artist.

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

So if I buy an iPod in Canada, I get to subsidize the illegal pirating that someone else does? In such a situation, I would imagine a lot of people feeling that they they had justification for pirating, since they had already paid for it. It might actually make the situation worse, not better.