So says Andy Oram at O'Reilly Radar, Music industry association recommends flat-rate file sharing. He's talking about a rumored proposal by the Danish equivalent of the RIAA and MPAA combined, that is, the International Federation of Phonogram and Videogram Producers, to allow unlimited file-sharing for a monthly fee spread across all users of Internet Service Providers.
This idea is not new, of course. Neil Netanel wrote a proposal several years ago calling for the NUL (Noncommercial Use Levy), and outlining all the potential problems with it. Terry Fisher wrote an entire book on the subject of how to fund the music industry without charging by the song/album, Promises to Keep. But this is the first time that an industry organization has seriously (or at least is reported to have seriously) accepted that this might be a better system than what we have now.
Oram's short post includes several other observations about DRM, competition and the differences between how the European Union and the U.S. deal with both. Good read.
Comments (2)
While this might be a great solution, I am unsure if American industry associations are ready to back down from some of their key principles.
Coverage of the Capitol v. Thomas case highlighted this for me, and served as a reminder that industry can view things very differently from consumers. According to coverage at Ars Technica, a lawyer at Sony BMG has testified that ripping your own CDs to your own computer is theft. Based on the RIAA's win, I do wonder how viable alternative models are in the near future.
Posted by Ariel Deiaco-Lohr | October 26, 2007 2:32 PM
Posted on October 26, 2007 14:32
It seems that the 'music like water' model of music distribution is gaining some momentum. I imagine that the main difficulties lie in getting so many different corporate, political and legal bodies to agree on an implementation of something in which they have so much vested interest. It may be worth considering that convenience is often the main driver of new technologies. If it's easier to pay than to not pay, then it's a no brainer - but we don't want to get draconian about it either...
Posted by music technology | November 22, 2007 1:13 PM
Posted on November 22, 2007 13:13