I don’t always agree with my colleague Chris Gilbey but we
do agree with the fact that disagreement and subsequent spirited debate with
each side attempting to wave it’s flag higher in the wind, often leads to meaningful
change.

In his article yesterday,
Chris opined that for the industry to solve it’s problems, there just needed to
be a levy on recordable media for both (cell) phones and computers.

In this regard he is half right. Radio and Television both
delivered royalties to the artists through Government licensing of Radio and
Television sets.

(Just like the Canadians with their $25.00 per ipod tax.)

Chris said that the industry leaders would’nt be able to
agree on the revenue share.

What he is missing is the way that it was.

The Government collected the revenue and the industry had to
get the revenue from the Government. How much did the Government pay to the
content industry? (Not a lot, but that hten becomes the subject of
justification between industry lobbyists and the respective national
treasuries.

I think I speak for the entire world (with the exception of
the Music and other content industry executives when I say, surely a Government
Tax on Computers, Phones and communication traffic delivered on the basis of
the type of file downloaded is the ultimate answer.

This would preferable to a flat levy scheme wherein individuals
not downloading are penalized for those that are.

We have the tools today to determine what is consumed by
whom. The question remains whether that can be done without infringing privacy
and I’m afraid the answer is a big fat no.

Therefore Chris may be quite correct.

However the benefit to Chris’ theorem is that content will
then become ubiquitous.

There-in lies the problem. I can see the Canadian flag flying
(they have a recordable media tax in Canada)
but I don’t see the industry appreciating the model.

In Canada,
the Government has elected to ignore the industry infighting. Their distribution
model is simple…..

There-in lies the rub. The Canadian Government has set a
value of only 15.10% on the non-performing and non-publishing Music Industry’s
input.

But they are also ensuring that Eligible authors and
Publishers receive a whopping 66% for generating new content.

As the Big four of the music industry are also it’s
publishers, I don’t really see  a
problem.

In the beginning we had TV and Radio licences.

Tomorrow we will follow the Canadian model and have a tax on
the media.

And think of the savings the industry can make. They can immediately sack all those hangers on at the RIAA and their associated lapdogs.

Although what Obama will do with a Justice Department full of RIAA ex-heavyweights is anybody's guess. After all, their only claim to fame is their ability to terrorise 13 year old kids and their solo parent mothers.

But at last the circle of life will be complete, taxes on your
earnings, taxes on your entertainment and when you die, death taxes (and possibly in the future hazardous material waste disposal taxes on your old CD collections).

The Government should actually like this model. It’s
sensible, stops the problems with the upstart political movements, clears our
courts for real crimes (murder, rape and speeding) and allows the world to get
on with living free of governmental control.

And why haven’t they done it?

Because no-one has done the numbers on how much a tax on
media is worth to the industry on a global scale.

We might have to see what we can do about that omission –
oh-oh I can feel one of those dry boring articles with lots of charts and graphs cluttering up the page coming on……   watch this space.

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