The music companies' new idea is to try to enforce a music tax:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/27/the-music-industrys-new-extortion-scheme/

  One thing I don't understand is why the music industry is so privileged
over other industries? This is not so only in the US, it's so also in many
other countries, including most western European countries, including
Finland. For example here the music industry is allowed to collect taxes on
each empty cassette, CD-R and other recordable media, as well as collecting
taxes from bars, restaurants and almost anyone. What is most puzzling is
that they are legally allowed to collect taxes from music they have
absolutely no rights to. All this is completely legal and government
sanctioned.

  My question is why. Why is the music industry specifically so privileged?

  Let's compare it to another very similar industry: The software industry.
Both music and software are both intangible intellectual property. The exact
same copyright laws protect both music and software. They are by all
practical means almost identical things from a legal point of view.

  However, for some reason, the music industry gets privileges the software
industry doesn't. In Finland, for example, there are no less than three (!)
entities created solely to protect music IP and to tax people (often even
if those people do not use music for anything at all). There's no such
thing for the software industry. There's nobody who would protect the
rights of software writers (other than basic legal protection which also
the music industry has).
  Recordable media gets taxed for potential music piracy. This money goes
to the music industry. Recordable media does not get taxed for potential
software piracy, and the software industry doesn't get a dime from this.
  The authors of the music IP get paid part of these taxes for doing
absolutely nothing, software authors don't get any such free payments.

  What is more aggravating is that the music industry gets all these
government-sanctioned privileges even though music is basically useless.
It has no real use. The same thing cannot be said about software: A large
part of software is actually useful, as useful as most physical tools and
devices you can buy in the shop. They help the overall industry to run and
produce.
  One would think that software needs more protection than music because
software is actually used to run the industry. But no, it's the other
way around: Software only gets the basic legal protection as any other IP,
but music gets all these government-sanctioned privileges. And why? I have
no idea.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   The music companies' new idea is to try to enforce a music tax:
> 
> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/27/the-music-industrys-new-extortion-scheme/
> 
>   One thing I don't understand is why the music industry is so privileged
> over other industries? This is not so only in the US, it's so also in many
> other countries, including most western European countries, including
> Finland. For example here the music industry is allowed to collect taxes on
> each empty cassette, CD-R and other recordable media, as well as collecting
> taxes from bars, restaurants and almost anyone. What is most puzzling is
> that they are legally allowed to collect taxes from music they have
> absolutely no rights to. All this is completely legal and government
> sanctioned.
> 
>   My question is why. Why is the music industry specifically so privileged?

Because they have friends in the legislature.

Regards,
John

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John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Because they have friends in the legislature.

  The music industry has more people in government positions than the
software industry? Maybe the music industry is more organized and thus
they have succeeded in doing this better than the more disorganized
software industry has been able to?

  What does it tell about democracy and basic human rights when it's
a bunch of private companies who run the government for their own benefit?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 1 Apr 2008 06:53:27 -0500, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:

>
>  What does it tell about democracy and basic human rights when it's
>a bunch of private companies who run the government for their own benefit?

We could always try a dictatorship, a benevolent one of course. Any
volunteers? :)
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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John VanSickle wrote:

>>   My question is why. Why is the music industry specifically so 
>> privileged?
> 
> Because they have friends in the legislature.

I was going to say they have rich lobbyists.

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47f22236@news.povray.org...
>  The music industry has more people in government positions than the
> software industry? Maybe the music industry is more organized and thus
> they have succeeded in doing this better than the more disorganized
> software industry has been able to?

I think it's simply that authors' societies and other rights collection 
societies have been around for decades or even centuries (the French one was 
created in 1850). Music
has been in the spotlight for a long time and public, harsh debates about 
music rights and rights collection go back into the 19th century (and into 
the 18th century if one considers author's rights in general).

OTOH software started post-WWII as an obscure, marginal industry that only 
became mainstream in the late 1980s so property rights issues concerning 
software didn't emerge until very recently. Possibly the problems weren't 
noticeable until the late 1990s, when the web became popular or even the 
early 2000s with broadband access.

G.

-- 
*****************************
http://www.oyonale.com
*****************************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray, Cinema 4D and Poser computer images
- Posters

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>  One thing I don't understand is why the music industry is so privileged
> over other industries?

Well the size of the industry can't be the reason.  Worldwide there was 
20x - 30x more spent on software than on music.

I guess the music industry just got their act together as a group to protect 
their interests and managed to convince lots of governments to their way of 
thinking.

Actually lots of big industries manage to get special treatment from the 
government, cigarette manufacturers, car manufacturers etc, so I guess the 
software industry is just the odd one out.  Maybe MS and Adobe etc should 
get together and get some taxes on DVD-Rs to be shared out?

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scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote:
> Maybe MS and Adobe etc should 
> get together and get some taxes on DVD-Rs to be shared out?

  No thanks! The point of my rant is that these unfair privileges should
be *removed* from those industries, not to extend the same unfair taxing
privileges to everyone.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Stephen wrote:
> On 1 Apr 2008 06:53:27 -0500, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> 
>>  What does it tell about democracy and basic human rights when it's
>> a bunch of private companies who run the government for their own benefit?
> 
> We could always try a dictatorship, a benevolent one of course. Any
> volunteers? :)

Me!  Me! :)

-- 
...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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Warp wrote:
> John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
>> Because they have friends in the legislature.
> 
>   The music industry has more people in government positions than the
> software industry? Maybe the music industry is more organized and thus
> they have succeeded in doing this better than the more disorganized
> software industry has been able to?
> 
>   What does it tell about democracy and basic human rights when it's
> a bunch of private companies who run the government for their own benefit?
> 

Democracy is a lousy system.  The only thing going for it, is that it's 
better than anything else we've tried.

(Sorry, can't remember who originally said that).

-- 
...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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