The flaw in this argument, that we should pay a $5/month music-benefit fee, is that there are much more deserving alternatives.

Every newspaper and television news organization I know of is cutting back on their investment in overseas and national news, a direct result people (like me) getting their news from internet sites (like Slate) that borrow their news content from the traditional news organizations like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, etc.

What we have here is a classical situation where the people who are receiving the benefit of someone else's work are not paying for that service. In other words, we are acting as free riders.

Perhaps the time has come to impose a $5/month news-benefit fee on everyone with an internet account, to be paid to those who invest the sweat and equity to bring us the news.

Who deserves $5/month more, the people who invent new love songs or the people who let us know what is happening in the world and let us know what our government is doing?

gone_fishing:

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Who deserves $5/month more, the people who invent new love songs or the people who let us know what is happening in the world and let us know what our government is doing?

Actually, the songwriters deserve the dough.

In forty years, will you remember what Rev. Wright said this week on Bill Moyers' Journal? Probably not. Might you remember the song that was playing while you had a glass of Merlot with a loved one on the couch? Infinitely more probable.

You're right to point out that news media, book publishers, movie makers, etc., are all facing an upheaval in how people experience their product. And these and other industries haven't figured out how to generate as much revenue from todays distribution as they did from yesterdays.

Truth is, we do already pay for news. Right here, right now, where you are reading it, even as Slate borrows it. We pay for it with increased consumer good and service costs because of the ads on Slate. If enough people click through Slate to a seller of something (or to another news source where they click through...) money will be made. There is no eqivalent for the music industry.

I've been pushing the ISP-blanket-license idea for over a decade, and it looks like some people with influence are coming around to this. A federal tax might also work - copyright law is one of the few rights enumerated in the Constitution by the founding fathers, and should be taken very seriously, and can form the basis for such a tax.

What might work better would be a system where every recorded work is made avaialable in an electronic format, with the owner (the label) as wholesale distributor, to any internet retailer. So-far, labels have made only a small fraction of their catalog available (and generally as low-quality downloads), through a few high-markup self-limiting resellers. This would be the true free-market solution.

While one person may enjoy a glass of Marlow and a favorite song, another may not be interested in these things.

As a person that mostly doesn't enjoy wine and only occasionally listens to music (as in times per year) I think that preserving the political system that preserves your right to choose the music of your choice and not to have it monitored, catalogued and filed; that says that even though you and I may not get our way the next election, at least I have a vote in the outcome; is simply more important than repairing the damage of illegal music downloads.

And can there be any doubt that a free, vibrant, strong, press is a necessary component in preserving that political system? Before you answer, remember that George Bush showed no hesitation whatsoever in secretly declaring the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the law of the land, as null and void. That is what makes subsiding non-governmental news agencies more important than entertainers.

People will always make music, even in the unlikely case where it is no longer commercially viable.

What you don't acknowledge is that in both cases, whether people are using "free" (illegal) downloads of music getting free news from sites such as Slate the consumer is acting as a free rider.

No doubt I am paying for the benefit of reading Slate in the form of higher prices for consumer goods, but none of that money goes to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune or LA Times. These are news organizations that support overseas bureaus, researchers, investigative reporters and such. The money has to come from somewhere, and increasingly, people are getting this content from the internet sources where they don't pay for it.

FirstInLastOut:

what, exactly, is Marlow?

A sixteenth century poet that some people enjoy reading while drinking a nice glass of merlot.