Copyright Law

Isle of Man Proposes ISP Blanket LIcenses

By Andrew Raff, Esq.

Is the Isle of Man, which eschews many of the taxes found in other European states, set to become a leader in levying a compulsory tax on internet use to compensate copyright holders for P2P file sharing?

The New York Times reports, Music Industry Imitates Digital Pirates to Turn a Profit, "The government of the Isle of Man announced plans for a system under which consumers with broadband subscriptions would be required to pay a nominal monthly license fee. They could then legally download music from any source, even peer-to-peer services that are outlawed currently."

MusicAlly live blogged the session at MidemNet where Rob Berry, from the Isle of Man's government, announced that the Isle of Man would be launching a porposal for a blanket fee for ISP-based music licensing. MidemNet 2009 Liveblog: Music and ISPs debate

Ars Technica's Nate Anderson reports, Isle of Man gets unlimited music downloads with blanket fee"Few details are available beyond the news that a single blanket fee will cover unlimited download activity for all 80,000 or so Manx residents, with money to then be shared with the music industry. This raises all the obvious questions that compulsory licenses generate, including the fairness of forcing everyone to pay, whether they want to download files or not."

Full post as published by IPTAblog on January 19, 2009 (boomark / email).