Um, to determine what is listened to the most, don't they need to track the listening habits of every American?

Ignoring that, do you really want guys like Al Gore (want to censor Prince), Hillary Clinton (wants to censor GTA) or John McCain (wants to censor the Sopranos) having the ability to stop payments to artists they don't like?

You raise a valid point. Implementation counts for a lot, as it does in everything, I suggested the data be anonymized. So, the govt. knows how many people have downloaded something, but not who. If that is being abused or music is being censored, I'm obviously not in favor of that.

My argument for why nothing should be excluded or censored, is that it isn't presently censored, and since fans of every type of music and media pay taxes, it should all be covered. And I'm certainly not suggesting politicians have any influence over that; I'm suggesting putting that in the hands of judges or arbitrators.

But, the whole idea is really to figure out a rough idea of what the artist would have earned under the "old" (present) market. That might be doable simply by tracking radio play, pop culture references, BitTorrent shares, downloads, how many remixes get made, sales numbers from concerts, Youtube views, etc. That would not be very invasive at all.

By the way, government courts are already frequently called in to assess how much one company owes another for something, or the market value of a service, etc. So the government already does this- however good it already does it, is probably the baseline on how good it would be implemented without any unusual data.

Anonymized, sure. But of course, they need a back door to track child pornography and terrorists. Both McCain and Obama seem to agree that spying is awesome.

And I understand you promote doing this in a content neutral way. Perhaps it will be content neutral at first. Then Bill O'Reilly (a popular Fox pundit) or Oprah play "objectionable" songs, and point out (correctly) to their viewers that their taxes are paying for it.

(Some examples, selected from one of my favorite artists.)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8hPvtuu9CbM

http://youtube.com/watch?v=R37H38bMVec

http://youtube.com/watch?v=lk06_ll_vgo

Remember, it's for the children. If we don't do it, little johnny will grow up to be a gay cannibalistic terrorist! Censorship is another thing McCain and Hillary can agree on.

I really appreciate your concern, and I'm with you on the anti-censorship bandwagon. But, widespread censorship is not popular with a majority of the public- if it were, it would have already been done. They can't even make pornography illegal. The O'Reilly's of the world could just as easily argue, "Our copyright laws make it possible for them to make money. Kill their copyrights!!!". But lately, the most they've ever managed to accomplish is getting meaningless "Parental advisory" labels on CD and game covers.

Anyway, it wouldn't really be "their" tax dollars paying for the music you like, any more than it would be your tax dollars paying for their Christian music (remember, there's no discrimination in what's purchased). Faced with also having their free Christian music taken away, I'm pretty sure they'll ease up in their opposition. It's better to think of it as your tax dollars paying for the music you like, their tax dollars paying for the stuff they like.

I hope that if ever a law like this were to be passed, you would continue to be concerned. But, I gotta say I always find it annoying when people criticize what might otherwise be a wonderful idea, by arguing that some people might be stupid about it, so we shouldn't do it. It's time to stop being so afraid of stupid people.

Government pays for and administers roads, the military, the justice system, and a host of other things that are much more abusable than our entertainment. They don't completely mess up all those other things, and I don't think it's likely to go badly when it comes to music. Given that the worst thing the government could do would be to not pay for certain things, meaning the artists would have to sell the music just like before, that's not exactly devastating.

Widespread censorship is already here. One example: the following (completely truthful) ad is illegal 29 days before an election:

AT&T has assisted the government in illegally spying on you. Barack Obama did what George Bush asked him to do: he voted to give them immunity for their crimes. Is that "Change we can believe in"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipartisan_Campaign_Reform_Act

This has nothing to do with entertainment, or the kind of censorship the moral conservatives would be interested in. It's way off topic. It's not even full "censorship"- there's nobody stopping the creators of such an ad from putting it on Youtube, for example. It just can't be broadcast on TV.

To address your comment somehow- the law you cite is probably unconstitutional. It was struck down by the Supreme Court once before, before being modified and passed again. I doubt the present form is constitutional, since it obviously does restrict speech.

Ironically, you, me, and the far right are the ones who most agree the law is bad :). Conservatives hate that law much more than do liberals. The conservatives' argument is "money is speech".