Two Steps Forward…

If you accept that our social movements take two steps forward and one step back, then it looks like we’re on the threshold of another two steps forward lurch.

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Music Piracy

I recently attended Ted Cohen’s TAG Strategic conference at NARM.  There was the usual concern raised about music piracy.

In the UK, the BBC collects a license fee (£145.50 per year, per color TV set) to create programming that is free from commercial influence. This has worked well for many years.

ASCAP & BMI collect performance royalties in the US for the use of music and songs from radio and television and distribute the funds to writers and publishers based on how often the music is played.

Why can’t this model be used to collect fees from ISPs and then distribute the funds to the writers and publishers —  based on clicks or downloads? End of problem. No matter how many downloads, writers and publishers get paid for their work, insuring that they will produce more for their fans.

Let me know if you think this could be a solution.