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Warner Music Proposes File-Sharing Tax for College Tuition

By soulxtc

Royalty fees included in fees would mean students could legally share music, but would also penalize those who don't share music or live in on-campus housing. Warner Music Group's digital music strategist, Jim Griffin, is proposing a "'voluntary blanket licensing' for online access to music" scheme whereby students are taxed for the privilege of legalized file-sharing with the proceeds collected by a nonprofit, Choruss, and divvied up among copyright holders. The presentation is making the rounds of college campuses nationwide by nonprofit technology advocate Educause, with Columbia, Stanford, University of Chicago, University of Washington, MIT, University of Colorado, University of Michigan, Cornell, Penn State, University of California at Berkeley and University of Virginia all reportedly having expressed some interest. It's not surprising considering the recent passage of the Higher Education Act (HEA), which included provisions forcing colleges and universities to combat illegal file-sharing on campus, may eventually cost these institutions some $500,000 USD annually. What's particularly unsettling about the proposal is that it forces all students, whether they live off campus or not, or even whether they share music or not, to pay an extra fee with their college tuition.

Full post as published by ZeroPaid on December 09, 2008 (boomark / email).