(Not So) Expert Commentary: Say No to an Internet “Music Tax”
Posted by Pablo in The Yellow Stereo
When I was in high school, music was reaching a crossroads just as I was starting to discover there was a whole lot more out there than just the radio. It was that time when record stores still existed and Napster was blowing everyone’s minds. It was obvious from the beginning that filesharing was going to change
everything, but the major labels spent years in denial. They shot lawsuit after lawsuit at the people, and remained clueless as their sales dropped and their popularity plummeted. Instead of embracing technology, they fought it. Minor labels have grown in popularity by embracing the internet, and a few independent labels can get their bands pretty high on the billboard charts, but the major labels still have 90% of the market.
Now, the major labels are proposing an internet tax, which you can read about in this Slate article by
However, there’s one major problem that Salam points out:
The problem is that both of these grand plans cut out the little guy. Apple wants to ensure that the iPod will crush all other music-playing devices for 1,000 years by building an overwhelmingly dominant music retail platform. Big Music sells 90 percent of records; if they manage to squeeze money out of the ISPs, one suspects they’d be more than happy to screw the independent labels that make up the other 10 percent.
If something like this goes through, of course some of us will keep on buying albums by the bands we love. But what will the average Joe think- “Fifteen bucks for an album? Come on! I get all the music I want for five bucks a month!” If the majors push their way into Congress and make the world subsidize their music, how will the indies compete? All of the car commercials in the world are going to overcome that price disparity, and indie artists will find it almost impossible to sell any significant number of albums. It probably wouldn’t run them out of business, but it would put a serious damper on sales and revenue, pushing artists into the arms of the majors. And with a lock on music revenues, my guess is major label contracts will return to their restrictive, controlling ways.
So, if this ever becomes more than an idea, I’m thinking we will have to make a ruckus and say no, or we just might find some of our favorite artists suddenly unable to sell their albums. Yeah, something needs to change about the internet and music’s relationship, but this is not the answer…
Oh yeah, here’s a couple of tax-themed MP3s…
MP3: Zookeeper: “Tax Collector”
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