Canadian Songwriters Want to Legalize P2P

[Shinobi]

Proposes $5 monthly tax on internet connections in exchange for allowing users to share music for free on P2P and file-sharing networks.

The Songwriters Association of Canada has announced a new proposal calling for the legalization of sharing music on P2P and file-sharing networks.

In "A Proposal for the Monetization of the File-Sharing of Music," as they refer to it as, the SAC wants to make it legal to share music with others online. In return, it proposes that a $5.00 "licensing fee" be added to every internet subscription bill each month.

The songwriters argue that this revenue generated by legalizing both the uploading and downloading of music will help offset the current losses associated with illegal file-sharing and in fact lead to a significant new source of income for music creators and the record industry.

Revenue generated by the licensing fee will distributed based on a sampling of file-sharing activities at the time. The SAC would track internet and wireless file sharing activity on a census basis. Virtually all sharing on the internet and wireless devices would be tracked.

The SAC also says that existing music sites like iTunes and PureTracks would continue to be licenced directly by Creators and rights holders and would continue to develop the attractive “value added” services and security features that keep them distinct from file-sharing activities.

It also states that it is not opposed to the legal protection of Technical Protection Measures (TPM) or “digital locks”, however it believes the obvious "economic benefits" of the $5.00 per month licensing fee model make such protection measures obsolete. "Given the consumer aversion to TPM’s, we believe their use will inhibit the success of recordings in which they are embedded, and they will simply fall out of use," it notes.

Check article in full here - http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9131/Canadian...to+Legalize+P2P

[subgenius]

now that's some progressive thinking!!! I doubt that would fly in the States, but I recently read an article of a study from some big industry group here in Canada that said that record sales were UP:confused: rather than the expected downturn in sales. Maybe if this country starts the show and it is successful then the rest will follow suit. Either that or all the proxy servers will end up clogged. Interesting find. Do you think this will affect the torrent community at all?