Isle of Man wants to legalize piracy…for a fee
The Isle of Man, a small self-governing subsidiary of the United Kingdom with perhaps the coolest flag ever (see above), is proposing a new law that would allow its residents immunity from prosecution for illegal downloading of copyrighted material. Each citizen would be forced to pay a monthly 1 Pound (roughly $1.40) fee into a communal fund that would be redistributed to copyright holders by a centralized government office. Both publishers and labels would benefit, and the residents of the Isle could breathe more easily knowing that their Torrent habits won’t land them a stint in some horrifying Isle of Man jailhouse. The downside, of course, is that the amount of compensation on the copyright holder’s side would be pretty nominal, leading us to believe that it’s going to be a hard sell. Then again, the concept has been batted around since the formative days of Napster, so there must be some appeal to such a business model. It’s certainly innovative, and some cash is better than nothing, so it will be interesting to see if regulators and government officials manage to pull this one off.
What the fuck kinda flag is that.. Uhh they best be recognizing their heritage flag aka Union Jack baby
Fantastic idea, but I think there are multiple problems with it (obvious?).
A.) The fee is too low. The only way I see something like that becoming an option (for the people on the losing end of this) is to charge a fee that would allow them to “look the other way” while still making a decent profit.
B.) We have RIAA etc.. to deal with here, who would never even CONSIDER such an option. Even if we paid $100 a month, that is nothing compared to the money they make if you go buy all those CD’s, Movies, Games, etc.. that you download.
C.) It’s basically asking to allow something illegal… for a fee. Seems like the wrong direction to go. The real fix is for the companies to allow downloads for a REASONABLE price. Why in the *bleep* would I pay 99c a song for example, when I am merely downloading the song. I have to provide my own storage, my own media, etc… Plain silly.
Even as an American, I have to agree wtih Roger A. on this one, cause the Union Jack is actually a pretty neat looking flag.
The flag for the Isle of Man looks mad stupid ahahaha.
The reason this idea will never be implemented is simple. If I buy the retail version of Windows Vista Ultimate for say ~$200 it will take a little over 11 years to pay for it, considering the alternative, using this service. With new versions of the software being offered every 3 years, profit margins will disintegrate faster than RIM leaks Storm updates.
Its like a guy kicking is own ass
I can’t tell if the flag is kicking or running.
I wonder what the movie and music industries would feel about this “legalized piracy”
Mike – The Union Jack, and Australian flags are both totally kick ass, mixed with the USA, I think they are the 3 coolest looking flags with detail.
But as the Isle of Man wants to be kicking itself, so it shows on the flag. Almost looks like a bad Greek Olympic Sport Flag.
Isle of Man = I Love Men?
Either way, the flag’s weird and the idea will never take off.
Didn’t they win the gold in the 3-legged race in the last summer Olympics? LOL!
I don’t think this implementation would work so well here in MAFIAA land but I would love the option to just pay $10-20 per month (not much more than a netflix sub or upgrade to a decent ISP) for a legit way to just download whatever the hell I felt like. I guess the problem would be an infrastructure to implement such a thing in a way that kept an eye on what was downloaded and distributed revenue accordingly. Honestly since the initial thrill of piracy wore off back in the Napster days, I rarely download more than a couple albums or a movie each month from P2P. The thing keeping a lot of people stuck on P2P is knowing that they can get whatever they want on demand and for keeps with no restrictions. I got tired of re-buying music and movies in new formats so the vast majority of stuff I’ve gotten illegitimately was data I had already paid for in another format. I would be glad to pay $20 per month to download a few movies and albums every month if it was legit and in decent quality without DRM.
Start a new ASCAP-type licensing group and offer it all up. Provide a centralized portal for downloads and tracking to assure proper distribution of revenue. If they can capture a good chunk of the illegitimate market they can stay profitable and keep up with what people expect these days.
Uh the flag obviously says they can kick your dweeb tech-blog-reading nerd ass from ALL directions. LOL
gotta love wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_man
The origin of the ‘Three Legs of Man’ (as they are usually called) is explained in the Manx legend that Manannan repelled an invasion by transforming into the three legs and rolling down the hill and defeating the invaders.
Hey! That’s the Sicily flag jokerpants!
Frankly i think the £ is a bit MUCH but I’d jump on it. The problem is that technology is rendering music media middlemen about as useful as longshoremen. The workers have the means of production and distribution. Bourgeoisie be damned!
well sorry to sink your collextive boats but the Isle of Man is not part of the UK nor part of the british government, it is a crown dependency, the triskellion flag or 3 legs of man is a very old flag indeed-infact the manx government is over 1000 yrs old and is the oldest continuous parliament in the world!
or motto is quocunque jeceris stabit
or for those who speak english-”whichever way you throw me/it i shall stand”
and why noy pay at point like a license…then protected by license from wrong doing-all legall above board and might even stamp out criminal sponsored downloading/pirating
@ Roger A.
Yeah, I totally agree !
I hadn’t considered that but, the Australian flag is also really nice too, that, the Union Jack, and the current U.S. flag are deff the top 3 IMO.
its an ace flag and so you know we arent of english heritage we are our own heritage and the union jack stands for nothing here. great idea for a law cant wait to see if it goes through
also, the flag is positioned so it is always kicking england for the people who were wondering what it was doing
the fascist wont rest til we are either bankrupted in prison or both!.those cunts would take your soul too if they could redeem it later for hard cash!