Commentary
Colleges Explore Student Music Tax
- by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, December 5, 2008
Now, it looks as if proponents of the idea are making a more serious push. Techdirt reports that some colleges, including Columbia, Stanford and MIT, have been in talks about the prospect of paying a licensing fee in exchange for a promise that students won't be sued for file-sharing, among other things.
The schools were shown an eight-slide presentation outlining this proposal, which includes a provision stating that students would be able to "access and use music any way they want to through the campus net," without being subject to lawsuits.
Warner Music's name appears in the presentation, but the label says it had nothing to do with creating the slides that are now making the rounds.
Nonetheless, Warner is exploring alternatives to its current approach -- which so far has involved an endless stream of lawsuits against individual Web users. Jim Griffin, hired by Warner in March to develop a fee-for-access plan, says the company is "actively engaged with universities and other parties to seek a constructive resolution to a complex issue -- how to assure artists appropriate compensation while enabling the widespread dissemination of their work among fans."
He adds that Warner is trying to "develop new voluntary business models that seek something other than -- and we believe, better than -- a litigation-based approach."
Clearly, there are better ideas than the current RIAA litigation campaign, which has disrupted the lives of thousands of unlucky people, extracting thousands of dollars from those who have settled and embroiling others in potentially ruinous lawsuits. What's more, in the five years that the record industry has been suing individuals, losses have continued to mount, while there's no sign that file-sharing has abated.
Still, it's not certain whether colleges or students will think that a licensing fee approach is workable. Some undoubtedly will view the proposal an attempt to shake colleges down. But, in some ways, lawmakers might have paved the way for this idea. Last summer, Congress passed legislation requiring colleges that receive federal financial aid to develop plans to combat piracy. It seems plausible that at least some colleges will decide it would be cheaper and easier to simply pay the record companies one upfront fee.
Wendy Davis is a Senior Writer at MediaPost. You can reach Wendy at wdavis@mediapost.com
In my opinion this is outrageous. Look at the colleges willing to go down this path. Either they have the endowments (or they used to) to cover this expense, or more likely they will charge their students for this "privilege." Either way, the RIAA gets their shakedown fees.
If I'm a parent of a student at a college that charges this fee back to the student, I am not including this as the price of an education. Tuition fees continue to outpace inflation, while parents and students are in a position where extra costs price them out of the education market. Is this necessary to get a college education?
The record labels were warned 18 years ago to update their business models, but they chose instead to assault the only people capable of supporting the industry - the consumer.
Here's the new warning shot to capture the attention of any sentient individuals left in the industry that hope to have a job in 5 years: If you don't embrace and support unsigned acts using a 21st Century business model, unsigned musicians will use our technology platform to make you completely obsolete!
Good luck shaking down college students...that's one way to decimate your customer lifetime value revenue model...
Colleges should not fall for this.
A one-time upfront fee in exchange for a promise not to litigate down the line may sound attractive, but what happens when the record labels continue showing profit shortfalls because more new artists elect to bypass the industry's antiquated model?
The RIAA will go back to the agreements and look for ways to shake down the colleges--who have much deeper pockets than any individual, and are more lucrative targets--for supposed "violations".
In the end, the student pays the price in the form of higher fees and the RIAA turns our higher education institutions into their collection muscle.
Is RIAA also located in Detroit? Or on Wall Street?
Fee-for-access from colleges? Better idea is for colleges to invest in their own libraries of music for downloads.
Our company provides this model for both schools, universites and brands.