BOB TARANTINO billing sparks public outrage
TERED THE METERED
RNETINTERNET
Decision on
usage-based
An arcane CRTC decision in February on “usage-based billing” among Internet service providerspromptedanexplosionofpublicanger. When the federal government voiced almost
immediate concessions to the rage, at least one
conclusion became inescapable: the copyright
wars are not going to end any time soon.
Two assumptions underlie the struggle
among content creators, distributors and
users to re-orient the hoary copyright regime
to better account for the realities of digital
technology. First, that someone will eventually figure out a mechanism to easily and
transparently facilitate payments for authorized online uses; second, that people who
access content online will prove willing to pay
in accordance with that mechanism. The public and government reaction to “usage-based
billing” indicates those assumptions may not
be tenable, at least not in a way that ensures
the survival of the entertainment industries
in their current forms.
Copyrighted entertainment prod-
ucts — songs, movies, TV shows, books — com-
prise many of the materials shuttling through
the digital connections of the Internet. Trad-
itionally, copyright ensured that access to
entertainment products required, somewhere
along the line, payment. That prospect of pay-
ment helped ensure that products were cre-
ated and distributed on a commercial level. As
the Internet has enabled widespread dis-
semination without multiple intermediaries
between creator and consumer, and has made
unauthorized consumption of content easier,
the critical payment element in the creation
and distribution calculus has been eroded.
How do the entertainment industries recover
that lost revenue?
