UK artists seek 'luvvie levy' on new gadgets to make up for all the media that consumers access online Leading lights in the world of "the arts" have called for a techy tax on mobiles, laptops, and PCs to help finance creative industries they claim have been ravaged by lack of revenue and funding. DACS – the visual artists' rights management nonprofit – reckons a levy of 1-2 per cent on the sale of new tech gadgets could help …
"redress the balance caused by people accessing music, films, and other creative material online without paying for it directly "
Hey, I'm all for supporting the Arts, but why choose to tax the equipment ? If people are consuming creative material online, they're going somewhere for that, so tax that place.
Are we going to start hearing a variation on VHS killed the film industry ?
Stop this nonsense.
Crap, so this is why CD-Rs are so expensive here. That is several times the actual cost of manufacture. I can't believe that some of my money has gone to Kanye West because I wanted to install software from companies that no longer exist on computers that are slower than the microcontroller in my fridge.
:(
Exactly. I don't listen to music on my phone or watch films, I listen to audio books, which I have purchased already, and I listen to podcasts, most of which I already support financially (I pay a voluntary subscription to around 80% of the podcasts I listen to - I could download them for free, but I want to support the people producing them).
Why should I pay more, when I already pay for everything I consume on the device, or the podcasts are handed out for free?
Who else besides the luvvies would think up a VD tax? I have nothing produced by them on my devices, though I do have some self-created images from the last 50 plus years, Can I tax the damned luvvies? To recover the cost of film and digital cards used more recently.
Another daft, no make that obnoxious idea for file thirteen.
So they want to dip in to every tech sale *and* keep strict DRM on their sales?
But on the bright side. I bought a new mouse the other day, so I suppose all my years of pirating films is now justified. All is right in the world once more.
Megaphone icon because: If I bought one of these tech gadgets, it means now I can steal a handbag or a car right? My memory of that classic advert is fading!
"Megaphone icon because: If I bought one of these tech gadgets, it means now I can steal a handbag or a car right? My memory of that classic advert is fading!"
You Wouldn't Download A Car, Would You?
I bough a tech gadget once. Therefore it is my consumer right to be presented with this video.
(Seriously, now I do kinda want to see it! I always predicted that some of the guys on these forums must be more creative than me. I never dreamed that I would one day get to experience it!)
Did you pay the licence fee to use the song Happy Birthday in your video ...?
It's public domain in the US and Europe, the copyright claim was invalid. See Wikipedia.
I've really had enough of salable products. The world is dramatically improved by the existence of non-salable products. Salability only demonstrates that somebody has convinced somebody else that the thing has value. Quite often, that event is completely independent of the thing's actual value.
This effect is not exclusive to the arts.
There is still a 25c/each tax on blank CDs here to pay for piracy. The money goes to the equivalent of the RIAA but somehow never made it to any artists, meanwhile small bands selling CDs at their gigs had to pay the tax.
There was a proposal to put a $50 tax on iPods but the iPod died out before it got passed
> meanwhile small bands selling CDs at their gigs had to pay the tax.
My son is just getting into the content creation business, I assume this tax means that he and the many others like him are being expected to pay to subsidise the established players in this field.
So, my Netflix, Amazon subscription doesn't generate any revenue for them? Or do they mean they should have asked for more? Or do they just think that they should be paid more than once?
Why should they get 2% on the $10,000 I used to build a crypto mining rig? (I didn't, but I might have).
Get real.
I'm not sure an extra tax solves that though, it's just subsidising Spotify's business model. Which I object to.
No I don't have a Spotify account I still buy CDs and rip them. So come the zombie apocalypse and the fall of civilisation I'll still have all my music. Who'll be laughing then hey?
Then that's something to be solved between Spotify and the artists/creators/performers/whatever.
My computers are not iPods, Zunes, or Fucking Walkmans. These machines are fucking workhorses. There's no way they could be involved in your streaming shit. We already pay a tax on every fucking blank media because "it can be used to pirate registered shit". And there is no way to get a refund when you use it to store your own(ed) content. Like backups and shit.
So, no.
And sorry, not sorry for this rant.
Sounds like one of instruments Russia or China could come up with to keep pulling apart our economy.
It's so easy to find a group of young bored people, given them money in exchange to scream whatever the agenda is to the media and hoping some of that will stick.
Hmmm, my "media consumption":
Netflix, Spotify ... Paid by monthly subscription
BBC etc ... Paid for with my TV licence fee
ITV etc ... Supported by advertising
DVDs ... All paid for at retail prices
So, where's all this free shit that the luvvies imagine I'm mainlining 24/7 ?
We have this shit in Italy, it's called "equo compenso" (something like "the right compensation") and it's needed to fund the SIAE, which is a clusterfuck in itself. It's applied to almost everything: servers, disks, any recordeable media, pcs, phones, set top boxes, etc. It's quite easily avoidable by buying online from some European seller.
They already have something similar in Germany...a portion of your broadband bill goes to the media industry, on the assumption that you're just going to pirate everything, so at least this way they get something from you.
But...it's still illegal to pirate. Hmm. So...they charge you a levy on the assumption you're going to do it, and it's illegal if you actually do it. How does that work?
> It works the same way you pay taxes on all income ... including income received from doing illegal things, like dealing drugs or selling stolen property.
You've missed it. The entire premise of this new tax is that it's to make up for content you're no doubt pirating. Income tax is not taken on the basis that the government thinks you stole the income.
Only in Britain could you suggest taxing one of the outlets for your product.
Perhaps a tax on theatres and music venues? Perhaps a tax on written music scores and violins?
Perhaps a tax on those "superstars" who are paid excessively ... oh, nerve touched there I reckon ...
This techy tax should go towards a fund for the unsung people in the software development world that this DACS 'non-profit' rely on for ripping off each others work.
How about an eating tax to be applied to supermarkets to create a fund to help support the restaurants that are struggling with the pandemic?
And an alcohol tax for the pubs and clubs that are also struggling.
An open source fund would make more sense!
Thinking of buying a new development laptop, 3% of a neat £1500 comes out at £45, am I any more likely to use this to do whatever it is they think I should be paying for than with a £30 Fire Stick / Chromecast / Roku? Do we have to pay it on our server and storage purchases?
Anyway, this problem is largely sewn up now, access through mobile devices and smart devices means most people are using streaming services for legal access (or semi-legal in the case of youtube videos). If producers aren't getting paid enough then that's the door to knock on. Or maybe do it out of general taxation, after all, I sometimes overhear buskers without paying them and no device was involved there.
More likely you'll see a tax on people working from home to pay the owners of all that office space who aren't getting paid anymore, and more tax on fuel to pay all the poor gas(petrol) station operators who have been missing revenue this last year. These have actually been suggested here in the Bay Area.
Bridge tolls are going up, partially because we've had less traffic. I kid you not.
And don't forget schools ... Schools are funded according to how many students they have had in the classroom recently. Not enrolled, mind, but the language actually states "in the classroom". Guess what happens when a pandemic ensures there are no kids in the classroom?
The bridge toll makes perfect sense. Bridge costs f(X) to maintain, where X is the number of cars every year. Unfortunately, f is not a linear function: even if the bridge has nobody going over it, there is still expensive maintenance and inspection that must be done (not to mention recouping the cost of building it, which is completely independent of usage).
It's pretty intuitive that if fewer people are using a fixed-cost resource, the cost to each user must go up.
Sony Operating profit 2020-2021
games and network services division : $3.17 billion
music division: $1.74 billion.
BMG : boosted its annual profit by 34 percent to $1.77 billion
Netflix : made $542 million in profit on $6.64 billion in sales in the fourth quarter 2020.
I gave up looking any further at this point. I think we can all see where this "luvvie levy" really needs to come from if the artists feel they're getting a rough deal. More than enough money is being made.
Exactly. Free.
I didn't contribute expecting to get paid ... although a nickle for every instance of TCP/IP which contains code that I wrote would certainly be nice, to say nothing of the myriad of patches I've contributed to the Linux kernel, BSD, GNU and FOSS in general over the decades :-)
Also, I think knives are a good idea. Big, fuck-off shiny ones. Ones that look like they could skin a crocodile. Knives are good, because they don't make any noise, and the less noise they make, the more likely we are to use them. Shit 'em right up. Makes it look like we're serious. Guns for show, knives for a pro.
We all know that money will never end up in artists' bank accounts.
Seems like an interesting fiddle.
- Find a disadvantaged group of people that public may feel sympathy for
- Keep screaming how that group is treated so badly
- Create a fund where the tax payer money will be siphoned into
- Get your mates to help themselves to it, but make sure anyone else is excluded
- When the money runs out and the disadvantaged group finds out, run a PR how that group of people is ungrateful and never satisfied.
Rinse and repeat.
The above is just my personal opinion. I am not suggesting something like this would actually happen.
So if we are all to be taxed on tech purchases because some "creatives" prefer to spend their days on the sofa waiting for their agents to call, then how about a tax on their performances to pay for all the people who write FOSS - that all those artists undoubtedly use for free while they are on the internet all day?
Perhaps if they can't make a living and they don't like it, they should go get a dull job like the rest of us that pays the bills rather than taxing everybody else.
Talk about leeches. Suffer for you art if it means so much to you. The rest of us have our own problems to deal with.
Here's an idea. Perhaps have a super tax on on all the successful artists to pay for the less successful.
Sorry, Its not the content creator's fault. Its just a fact of life.
Relatively few artists / musicians / what-have-you are able to make a living doing what they do. Its a lottery where talent and success aren't necessarily related -- some get rich, some scrape by but most, like the rest of us, need a day job. Subsidies and grants tend to go to the well-connected and getting and maintaining these becomes almost a job in of itself.
I wouldn't dream of charging for the stuff I create. But then I know how much its really worth.
Agreed, though with of course the distinction between worth and value. My BF is an artist - a pretty good one. But he knows it's next to impossible to make a living doing what he does...so it stays a hobby.
That's how it is for most creative types. Very few actually earn a living writing, performing or creating. At best it's something you can do in your spare time that might get you a little extra beer money, but not to live on.
Curiously the market seems to be widening. On the one hand you have musicians getting paid $100,000,000 for the rights to their music, and on the other you have people selling their albums made in their bedrooms for $5 on Bandcamp. At least now amateurs can get their work seen/heard, but it's harder than ever to make it your full time job.
It's not that surprising. Take away tech that allows quick distribution of content and almost every artist becomes a local impoverished entertainer. Add the tech back and suddenly anyone can be heard/seen, but it becomes a winner takes all scenario, where popular people are more likely to remain popular, and unknown people have a harder time breaking in.
Relatively few artists / musicians / what-have-you are able to make a living doing what they do."
A mate of mine was in a band. They supported some very big names back in the day, but never made it themselves. He owned all the gear, amps, speakers and whatnot. He went into the rental business and made more from that than performing.
The old adage about the guy selling shovels in a gold rush. Most miners will fail but the people selling the gear are guaranteed to do well, if not as well as the successful miners.
Exactly this. A million times this. The primary source of the media I consume is either the ripped audio from CD's I've already purchased, Ebooks I've already purchased, or the free audio books for the blind; I've spent decades collecting & ripping music so I could listen to it where, when, & on whatever I damn well pleased; I've either purchased Ebooks by the thousands, downloaded free books from sources like Project Gutenberg, or paid for podcasts of authors I like (Welcome to Nightvale, I love you!); I've either purchased audio books (like the boxed set of the Welcome to Nightvale collection), or the source of which is free because my taxes already paid for it; so what & where *exactly* do you propose to tax to further enrich all those artists I've already paid for?
"But what about all those movies & tv shows & videos on Hulu, Netflix, & Youtube that you binge watch?" Sorry, no. I don't watch them any longer because I'm blind & the canned laugh tracks aren't amusing when you don't have the visual clues as to whatever it's being played to enhance. When all you hear is car chases, gun fire, explosions, & "damsel in distress" screaming on a seemingly endless loop, you quickly realize there isn't anything worth bothering with (much less paying for) any longer. "But there are awesome shows about..." Stop right there. They might be interesting if you can see what's going on, but when your only means of consumption renders it all into a single dimensional dumpster fire of unintelligible crap, you wind up finding your entertainment elsewhere. Like audio books, Ebooks, & music. For which I've already paid.
If I were sighted & still consumed media like the rest of society (tv, streaming, etc) then sure, I'd pay for those resources, but since I don't do the first I also no longer do the second. But you want to tax me as if I don't already have a personal library from which to consume, and that's the part that makes me wonder.
TL;DR: Your tax idea sucks. I've already paid for my library, I'm not going to pay you again.
So no money in streaming?
"In total, that meant the majors’ recorded music divisions collectively turned over $2.26bn from streaming in the fourth calendar quarter… which equates to $24.8m per day"
https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/its-happened-the-major-labels-are-now-generating-over-1m-every-hour-from-streaming/
Please click to donate 0.0001c to him...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE4lpSFNFUE
as for the big names well...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqbk9cDX0l0
Do my best to support these underground artists. I have the CDs and, i am cutting my own throat here, the T-shirt.
Icon. He found this better than teaching.
The cynical editor in my head is hard at work with this one, replacing "writers and performers" with "Sony" etc.
I love how, when I perform an original piece of music in a public place with my band, Taylor Swift gets a little bit of the money the bar made that night. :P Love you Tay but that's MY 0.04 cents, thanks.
Well, I have broadband at good speeds so I'll obviously simply download all my pirate stuff, poop in a policeman's helmet, deliver it to his wife etc etc etc.
Maybe, on the side, I can continue to run my video/graphics business from home as well.
Whilst listening to <some pirate title album or other>.
Muppets.
Some people eat while listening to music, and some people sit down -- so why not tax food or chairs?
Hell, why not give ALL your money to pop singers? They're obviously the most worthy people in the world -- I mean, can you name one who hasn't won the Nobel Peace Prize, or come up with a medical advance that's saved millions of lives?
I think you'll discover that most places have entertainment taxes, occupancy taxes, and food (in restaurants) is most certainly taxed.
However, this isn't about pop singers. It's about industry executives and other shareholders. If you have never read Janis Ian's rather excellent commentary on the subject, do yourself a favo(u)r and check it out. Read the follow-up, too.
Suggestion: Get a cuppa, and find a quiet place where you won't be interrupted before starting in on it. It's longish (for this sound-bytebit addicted modern world), and quite densely packed with large doses of reality.
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