Pribek

The Canadian Songwriters Association has come up with a unique proposal in an effort to solve the music file sharing problem. From the Toronto Star…

The Songwriters Association of Canada proposes a $5 monthly fee on subscribers’ Internet bills that would make it legal to download music and hopefully save the failing music industry.

A tax-A Music Tax

If you get the internet-$5.00 a month; simple as that. All downloads would be legal.

Sales of CDs are down 20 per cent worldwide and 35 per cent in Canada, compared to 2006.

An estimated 1.6 billion music files are downloaded in Canada each year on “grey-market” peer-to-peer systems, representing $1.6 billion in lost revenue, using the iTunes price model of 99 cents per download.

The total number of purchased downloads in Canada was 38 million in 2005. The ratio of shared to paid downloads is 98:2 (98% shared files vs. 2% purchased downloads).

O.K. now, I am somewhat in the know on these things. The CD sales figures seem accurate. The 1.6 billion files shared figure and the 98:2 ratio of illegal to legal downloads…well, there is no way that anyone could come up with an accurate figure. It’s a guess.

“Monetizing peer-to-peer file-sharing would generate significant new revenue for creators and the music industry,” says acting SAC president Eddie Schwartz, “and re-establish revenue levels (for songwriters) that we haven’t seen since 2000-2001.”

Here’s the deal, you have a 20 percent drop in CD sales in one year. At the same time, the number of legally downloaded tracks is way up. But, the increase in legal downloads is a drop in the bucket as far as the over all loss is concerned. The stone cold reality is that revenue has dropped in major size chunks for many years now. And, Eddie brings up a good point there about songwriters. Songwriters are bearing the brunt of the loss of revenue due to file sharing.

So, this is a radical proposal here. A $5.00 a month music tax.

How would you feel about that dear readers? Would you gladly pay an extra fiver on your internet bill if file sharing was made guilt free and legal? Or, does the thought of a music tax make your blood boil?

Don’t be shy here, I would really like to get some comments. Really.