Sabam, the Belgian Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers, will encourage internet providers to take responsibility. They must pay a fee for daily use of thousand copyrighted works that add value to their subscriptions, to compensate for the sharp decline in CD and DVD sales of approximately 20 million (!) euro.

According to Sabam, the market shifted from music producers to telephone and internet operators, and therefore internet providers have to contribute. This makes sense considering that nowadays few people buy a CD or DVD but mostly download. According to Thierry Dachelet, spokesman of Sabam, the providers play an active role by attracting customers for only a few dollars to download a larger quantity and thus give a larger value to their subscriptions.

Sabam would like to see this problem laid down in the law. Now there are already two bills in Belgium about this subject. Sabam says to be willing to negotiate with all parties. In return downloaders will not be addressed for two years (through a moratorium, a legal remedy whereby billing will not be possible for a specified time).

Perhaps the role of ISPs will be more active, in order to stick up for the copyright owner. The compensation for the copyright owner because of the downloading must lie somewhere. It is therefore understandable that Sabam is defending the copyright owners, given the sharp decline in CD and DVD sales. Whether this is actually the solution to the increasingly common problem is not clear yet. We have to wait and see. One of the complications in the solution proposed by Sabam is how ISPs should then divide the collected fees to give to the (international) rights holders.

Reference: Demorgen.be