[Charbax]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Any solution that would result in Warner Music being put out of business would, of course, be "unviable."

Yup, I am just linking to Jim Griffin's opinion. He is a guy that was somehow hired by Warner to formulate some suggestions. Though I am quite confident that Jim Griffin knows that his suggestions will lead to putting Warner out of business. Cause obviously a global license system does put all intermediaries out of business and that is exactly what Warner is all about.

If they can't stop the evolution of Internet technologies, they may want to try and see if they can somehow get to control it.

Jim Griffin is talking about that way the Internet evolves, and by talking about it at least he is acknowledging that the only solution is a global subscription plan, or a global tax.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Which country should make this law?

Any country can start doing this anytime now. France could have started this in 2007 if only Ségolène Royal had won the election against Nicolas Sarkozy. Certain other countries are talking about implementing this maybe, such countries as England, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium all are talking about it at the Parliament level.

They know they can't sue all teenagers. They know p2p file sharing cannot be stopped or controlled. Parliamentarians aren't all completely stupid. They know something has to be done and completely obviously the only solution is a global license thus a global subscription plan or even better a tax.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

What should the countries who make this law, do to countries who refuse to go along with it?

Simply put, not pay the artists from those other countries. They could save up some piles of money for artists not yet registered in their country for whenever their country joins or simply allow all international artists to register on their plan to get access to those payments.

All countries will quickly understand though that it makes no sense to try and stop it. This is totally and completely inevitable. All artists, all journalists, all writers, all film makers and TV people, they are all going to be paid through collective payment systems. Now if those payments are coming from interoperable subscription models, from ISP-level Global Licence payments (perhaps even with a choice to opt-out if for example you say that you aren't consuming any Global Licence arts online, just as UK and Danish people can opt out paying BBC and DR public service licenses if they don't have a TV) or if it will come through a dynamic modular tax.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

How will they restrict access to this data from countries who refuse to pay a "fair share" of this tax?

Absolutely no need to restrict access to any data to people downloading from other countries. The system has to start with trusting that the intern subscription, license or tax revenue will be enough for sustaining the internal artists.

Now if as a result of this new artistic revolution, the national artists produce such fantastic content that an enormous of International attention is brought, well then nothing stops the artists from commercializing their stuff in other countries, thus treat their bandwidth export as some sort of free marketing for whatever commercial opportunities they may still have in those chaotic countries that may not accept changing their system for the best.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

What happens to authors who do not wish their works to be distributed world-wide?

Well firstly, if they do not want to see their works on worldwide p2p darknets then they should firstly not release their works and just keep it for themselves. There is NOTHING they can do about it no matter the laws and regulation passed be them Pro-p2p or Anti-p2p. No law can ever stop p2p file sharing. Impossible, never going to happen, go to sleep, not even remotely possible.

Second, all artists can opt-out being paid from this system if they don't want money.

Third, all artists can opt-out having their works backed up and seeded on government sponsored systems that will be responsible to safeguard a copy of all works and all digitalisations of all works with the prospect to guarantee that all works are available to everyone no matter their popularity, and to optimize the identification of works, optimize the distribution speeds of works, to coordinate the distribution of the optimal digitalizations of works. Artists can opt-out being part of that download.gov server.

Fourth, law should decriminalize the teenagers using p2p, thus artists should not expect to be able to sue the children of countries passing this law. They should just know that they can forget everything about their attempts at terorising the children with idiotic law suits claiming for astronomical fines to be paid. That kind of fascism will not be tolerated. And p2p will be legalized and completely encouraged by the Governments.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

What about countries where only 10% of the populace has internet at all--why should people w/o access to Google books bother paying for them, or why should 100% of the taxpaying public subsidize the 10% of them who'll have use of the services? Unlike the US, where the majority of public schools have computers & internet and therefore a nationwide "tax for artistic works online" makes some sense as part of national education, in many countries, a "tax for online artistic works" turns into "poor people pay so rich people get more entertainment."

Your point is right though, this whole artistic revolution plan has to be part of a plan to bridge the digital divide. The global human rights should be ammended providing everyone worldwide with a right to Education, to access to all Knowledge, Information and to the total unrestricted exchange of ideas. Now I am not an expert in Human Rights and too lazy to do a Google Search on it. But I am pretty sure those things are not Human Rights, but the Human Rights are only about 50 years old, they are pretty recent, and when they were written people had absolutely no idea that a tool like the Internet would be possible where all information, all knowledge, all communications can be worldwide, instant and free. Eventually Human Rights should include a global right for food, healthcare and decent shelter and transportation. But I am also pretty sure those can get taken care of once everyone is online.

Anyways, the global tax can be totally elastic. People should pay according to their personal income and people can pay as well according to their access to those online tools. The average Chinese is probably going to be paying 10x less than the average European for example. But that may also mean that Chinese artists might have to deal with less revenue per artist from this system. Until they can get up to our level.

I actually think that legislative action on this can be accelerated as politicians realize that the consumption of intellectual goods on the Internet can replace the consumption of material goods. This reduces pollution, this reduces inequalities, this can reduce psychological tensions between the rich and the poor, since distribution of intellectual goods on the Internet is completely and absolutely free and can become carbon neutral once data centres can be solar and wind powered and once people start using ARM Linux powered Laptops that consume 50x less power than bloated Intel/Microsoft PCs.