Should ISPs pay royalties to musicians?

[Peachy]

The Supreme Court of Canada begins listening to arguments on whether Internet Service Providers should pay royalties to musicians just like radio and television broadcasts. CBC NewsOne of the unknown implications that may result from this case if the copyright owners win their case is whether ISPs outside of Canada would be forced to pay royalties to Canadian musicians. This case may take up to six months before a decision is reached. Stay tuned...

[pc-tecky]

How would they possibly know who to target? Impossible and impractical. They'll all move to the back woods of the former U.S.S.R.

[Stryder]

No they should not. Web based radio stations are already paying fees to broadcast. This would be a form of double billing. And if they are making ISPs pay a fee due to illegal downloads.....would that make the downloads legal now? Besides, the ISPs would not be paying the fees. Because the ISPs would pass that fee right down their customers bill.

[Prelude76]

the sad thing is there already is a tax levy (royalty) fee in every blank CD-R, VHS and cassette that you buy in Canada. plus they want to add that to blank DVD-Rs too. and adding royalty fees to ISPs will make all our ISP fees to up, with some ISPs deciding to close the doors, and resulting in less competition. they want it to be similar to how TV and Radio stations pay fees to play music. and then SOCAN (Canada's RIAA that is behind this ridiculous ISP royaltie scheme) has the never to say they will also start SUING users that pirate copyrighted mp3s, similar to how RIAA is doing in the States.one question: wouldnt we be already be paying enough hidden fees, levys and royalties? if they sued me once i downloaded some canadian mp3, could i not argue in court that technically i already PAID for it thru all those hidden fees? and guaranteed that even if they stop or clamp down on majority of internet piracy, the fees will stay in place for ever. i mean, there's still fees on blank cassette tapes. i'm pretty sure people that buy blank cassette don't 'pirate' songs. i' pretty sure its only by people who have a tape deck in car and want to transfer from CD to cassette, something called "FAIR USE".i think i'll move to the states, the RIAA doesnt seem so evil anymore, compared to these scheming hidden-tax bums at SOCAN. Slashdot had some good points: it's like suing GM if a robber drives a Chevy to a bank, or suing gun makers if some guy kill someone with a gun, or suing the phone company if two people plan a crime over the phone.

[linuxdude32]

the sad thing is there already is a tax levy (royalty) fee in every blank CD-R, VHS and cassette that you buy in Canada.  plus they want to add that to blank DVD-Rs too.  and adding royalty fees to ISPs will make all our ISP fees to up, with some ISPs deciding to close the doors, and resulting in less competition. 

I believe the US has a similar levy on blank media. Unfortunately a lot of people are pirating music, movies and so on and all of us end up paying for it. The biggest problem on the Internet today is how to pay for content of any type. iTunes is already starting to do it with music, eventually the ISP may end up being treated like a cable company and paying fees for the information/programming/music/video they make available much like the way cable companies do. Unfortunately it hurts the small ISP since the infrastructure will make it unprofitable for them. The gravy train of the Internet is coming to an end, folks.