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Surprise: European Artists Defend Free Money From Blank Media Tax
from the gee,-who-would-have-guessed? dept
Imagine, for a moment, that every week the government sent you a check for a $100, just as payment for the fact that someone, somewhere might have done you wrong. If that program came up for discussion among politicians, you'd have to imagine that an awful lot of people who received those checks would stand up and defend the importance of such payments, while complaining about the supposed (if unproven) wrongs against them. That's why it's hard to put much weight in this article that Ben submitted about a bunch of European artists talking up the importance of the blank media levy that many European countries tack on to things like blank CDs or iPods. Of course artists are going to defend those fees. After all, they get a bunch of money for not doing anything, on the off chance that maybe, just maybe, someone somewhere is using the blank media for copyright infringement. So, it's hard to take claims that "it's disgusting" that the levy might go away, as anything other than pure greed from someone who doesn't want to see a free lunch taken away. As for the claim that struggling artists need this money, another take might be that more people would be able to pay the artist directly for their works (or some related performance of their works) if they didn't have to spend all this extra money on their blank CDs and iPods.
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Paying as you go
greed.
I guess it's OK to copy their music then,
since payment has already been made.
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so how do I become an artist?
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Who actually gets it?
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Value Added
So then the only party that adds value that I would want to pay for, is the artists themselves who actually produce the content. I don't mind paying the media tax, if it provided me with access to all content, so I have choices about obtaining just and only the content that I want.
I pay this tax to the recording companies anyway to buy a whole CD that has only two songs that I want anyway, which I then record onto other meda and put the CD away.
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Hope
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New model?
Then we can go after counterfeit media-producers instead of high-schoolers with music.
Of course, what would probably happen is they'd ruin it by charging you twice (like they are in Europe now)-- you still have to pay for the song, plus an additional cost for the media. Yep, greed always gets in the way.
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There might be a chance...
Why don't we lock everybody up on the chance that they might commint a crime?
Issue EVERYONE speeding tickets on the chance that they might speed.
We could give everyone the death penalty on the chance that they might murder someone...
I bet this was a french idea...
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Always a chance
Ever see minority report?
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CDs...? what CDs?
oh, wait, thats a piss poor attitude to take. and I do on a not-very-often basis need to mint about 5-100 cds for work purposes (ie small conference/demo/handouts).. so I'd be pretty annoyed if I had to pay the **AA for the right to be able to distribute MY OWN CREATED CONTENT to MY OWN CLIENTS.
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Media need to rethink
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Re: CDs...? what CDs?
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Re: Re: CDs...? what CDs?
software written in visual studio mostly. websites, templates, databases...
but not audio.
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Re: Re: CDs...? what CDs?
http://www.createdigitalmusic.com/
All the latest news and in-depth coverage of music and multi-media creation.
As for me, gere's a short list of what I like to use and run on my DAW:
FLStudio
Sonar
Live 6
Plus a TON of plug-ins, most of which you can discover on:
http://www.kvraudio.com
I hope that answers your question...
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