New music label movement Choruss is targeting universities in the United States to apply a new “music tax” on it’s students, a business model that seems more like legal protectionism than a socially respectable product.

Universities are being provided with marketing materials for a service which would build a “small” fee in to student enrollment fees at some level, which, grants students a seemingly nontransferable and mostly vague and unclear copyright license to download music on the Internet.

Wired.com was told, from a member of the digital music industry, that an “independent nonprofit organization” would be formed, which would “collect funds from universities and ISPs and disburse them to copyright holders,” through a modification of a common Internet business strategy referred to as “micropayments.”

Three of the four major record labels, Universal Music Group being the only which has not, have signed on to work with Choruss.

Choruss would represent a movement away from the current Digital Rights Management (DRM) model of music distribution online. Historically, a fearful record industry has insisted on allowing distribution of it’s music online, only with bundled software which would prevent law-abiding users from burning it to CDs, trading it with friends, and otherwise distributing it; whether intentionally or accidentally.

Formed as an independent organization, Choruss claims, they will not offer Warner Brothers Group or the associated labels any preferential treatment in the profit disbursement, and would like to include legitimate independent bands and labels in the distribution channels.

Political analysts suggest that a successful adoption of a music tax on students is likely to form a slippery slope, becoming a music tax adopted at the Internet Service Provider level, and perhaps even eventually the law. One analyst suggested that “even ignoring the fact that this is entirely unfair to those who consume disproportionately small amounts of label-signed music, such a policy eliminates the need for the music industry to remain competitive, as it creates a guaranteed cashflow independent of quality or any other metrics.”

“I think this is ridiculous. This industry needs to adapt, certainly, but do so by creating products, not a fear-industry of legal gaming, then trying to exploit your new fear-market by selling protection. This doesn’t even come with free access to new music as it comes out, the industry is providing nothing; it’s not creating a market of music distribution, [it's] just charging for the already existent [underground] one,” anonymously says a member of a major-label signed band.

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