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A P2P Monetization Plan From Hellby George Ziemann -- March 14, 2008 Another major label lapdog has come up with a plan to collect a monthly fee from internet service providers and "put it into a pool that would be used to compensate songwriters, performers, publishers and music labels." It sounds like a good idea on the surface -- if you're a pirate or if you work for a major label. As usual, everyone else gets bent over and told to squeal like a pig. Who Gets Fucked?Honest People are going to be suddenly asked to pay for a service that, on the advice of the recording industry, they have refused to use for free. The Legally Astute, who knew that sharing (distribution) was the only potential violation of the copyright law and that "illegal downloading" is smoke that the RIAA has been blowing up the public's ass for years. This includes everyone smart enough to simply uncheck the "sharing" option on their p2p software. Borderline Computer Illiterates, who have an Internet connection, but can barely do e-mail. They're not using p2p because it's wa-a-a-y too complicated for them. People Who Have No Use For Peer to Peer -- Maybe you're just not a big music fan. Maybe the idea of a "black market" kind of scared you away a little. Maybe you heard that the music industry was trying to sue everyone who uses p2p. Maybe you tried it once, only to get a recording of Madonna saying, "Fuck you." Or viruses, or popups, or any number of other intentionally placed annoyances. It's no better this year, but now you get to pay for it. Word is that there are currently 40 million p2p users in the United States. According to internetworldstats.com, there are 215 million people using the Internet in America. That means 175 million of us have to pay up $5 a month for something we never used or want to use. This adds up to $875 million a month, or $10.5 billion a year, just from the people who don't use peer-to-peer in the first place. Add in the $2.5 billion they'd collect from the people actually using p2p and we're up to $13 billion a year, which is about twice what the entire industry grossed from wholesale sales last year. The Down SideYeah, it gets worse, which is why I kept mentioning peer to peer. Payouts will be based on what gets shared on p2p. This would be similar to only paying radio broadcast royalties to songwriters that get played on Clear Channel. If you're one of the hundreds of thousands of acts that have been giving away your music on the Internet as soon as it was possible, at mp3.com, then DMusic, GarageBand, IUMA, vitaminic, mySpace or any other legal, aboveboard site that offers music, you're not on the list of songwriters and performers that will be compensated unless you have already earned enough attention that people are searching for your stuff on p2p. And finding it. Good luck with that. As always, the wants of the few outweigh the needs of the many. The Ultimate InsultIf you care about music, this is the most insulting idea to come down the road in a long, long time. What is the industry going to do? Take the people they've been calling pirates for the last 7 years, accusing them repeatedly of destroying the music business, and turn them overnight into the focus group that determines who gets paid for music. The people who thought they've been sticking it to the man are going to discover that they're really sticking money in the man's pocket, just like I've been saying all along. The peer-to-peer crowd always had the power to determine how this turns out. Still does, but I seriously doubt that the instant gratification crowd has the collective intelligence to figure it out because they've been playing the RIAA's game all along. It will be interesting to see what happens to the lawsuits the day that no law changes but file-sharing is suddenly legal. Or will they simply sue everyone who pays the $5?
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