Get Ready Washington For More Sub-charges From Comcast

by Elias Shams
The nation’s largest Internet and cable provider, Comcast is in talks to offer a music streaming service to its ISP and cable TV customers. The service would stream songs via a website or to a viewer’s TV set-top box. The Charge: at least $5 per month for subscribers.

Pay for music? Hmmm… I guess this should be a great News for music industry, which has been trying to find ways to charge for their music, and to enlist ISPs to do more to curb music piracy. It has been very difficult for them to ignore the basic economics of the their industry – property rights and zero marginal production costs.

It’s a smart move by Comcast, but I think very devious too. Eventually the music/record industry will convince governments that their failure warrants taxing the ISPs. Comcast is taking the initiative of generating these revenues before these charges are taken from them.

I wonder how this has been working out for RCN? They have been offering this for a few years for about $9/month. So, the new service offered by Comcast, other than the lower price this isn’t anything new and I don’t see it as a step toward an “ISP music tax”.

So, do you think this is really a new innovation or another worthless exorbitant surcharge for crap content they are going to shove down our throat?