Re: [dvd-discuss] Protecting Creative Works in a Digital Age (revised)

[Scott A Crosby <crosby(at)qwes.math.cmu.edu>]

On Mon, 25 Mar 2002, Steve Hosgood wrote:

> > Good comments. Submit them
> >
>
> Minus the following:
>
> > > * Why not legalize the existing sources of content. Say, through
> > > compulsary licenses, or a reasonable levy on residential bandwidth.
>                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > > Something similar to AHRA, which worked a decade ago.
> >
>
>
> So - all residential users of internet are assumed to be pirating material
> and thus a *levy* is in order?
>

Look.. I hate it too... But a levy exists in the AHRA too.. You have to
offer congress *some* token way out.. Let the main goal be to kill CBDTPA,
then kill a levy, if it is unreasonable.


> Didn't almost everyone on this list just decry the Canadian Govt's suggestion
> of putting a levy on data storage devices?

For a couple of reasons.. First, that levy in canada would triple the
price.. In some cases, it would make the price 10x. Note the word
'reasonable'. Had the proposed levy's for CDR been 1/10 as much, would we
have decried them? Had the levy on (say) mp3 players with HD's been capped
at, say, $1/flashrom, or $8/device. would we have decried it as
forcefully. What riles us is that the levy acts to multiplicatively
increase the price; because it had no cap.


Storage != bandwidth.... Many times people store their own datasets.. So
charge on the downstream side. It costs nothing to upload. Also,
statistically analyze the downloads from a subset of people; the same
way we do now with TV.. Distribute the levy proportional to the uses of
the bandwidth.. Any levy associated with downloading of non-commercial
non-copyrighted work gets sent to, say, archive.org to fund the internet
archive.


>
> A levy on bandwidth is just as daft!
>


It sucks.. The whole thing sucks for everyone all around. All alternatives
are incredibly disruptive.. You have a better idea? Post. :)


Scott