Kazaa Lobbyist Suggests Flat-Fee Plan
from the no-surprise-there dept
dsg writes in with a link to the story about the “Distributed Computing Industry Association” – which is really just the folks behind Kazaa – suggesting that a solution to the file sharing issue would be to just require all users to pay a monthly flat rate to use the systems. They suggest $5/month and say this would generate $200 million for the industry per month. While it does raise a lot of issues (who figures out who gets paid how much, for instance), I’m not totally against this idea. If it really opens up a true peer-to-peer file sharing system, rather than one of these annoying copy-restricted download stores – then it actually sounds good. A lot of people would be willing to pay the $5/month just to avoid the risk of getting sued and it would still allow all of the real benefits of peer-to-peer distribution. However, as is suggested in the article, the RIAA won’t go for such a plan until it’s way too late for it to make a difference.
Comments on “Kazaa Lobbyist Suggests Flat-Fee Plan”
Monetizing P2P
There is a new white paper by DRM Watch that describes a way to monetize P2P that distributes money to the content owners, based on their actual sales. I think your readers will find it interesting. The link is http://www.digitalcontainers.com/whpapers.htm
No Subject Given
pfft…check your old comments. I suggested this about 4-6 months ago. Damn, why didn’t I patent it.
No Subject Given
Will never work as artists aren’t likely to want to share ‘equally’. And Mike, I’m disappointed that you are ‘ok’ with the premise of this. You’ve always been so over the top in FREE FREE FREE !!!
What you might see evolve out of this is the individual studio’s setting up their own file sharing networks so that you can subscribe to the artists they manage for a small flat fee ,,,, still without down loads and Ripping.
At which point we’re pretty much back to where we were, just a different medium.
Re: No Subject Given
I’m afraid you’ve misread my comments. I’ve never been over the top talking about free. I’ve always said that I’m looking at it from the economic perspective- and if you’re in a business where you’re competing with free, you’re better off figuring out a way to embrace it, rather than block it. Because blocking it will never work. I still believe that charging for content is always going to be a very difficult proposition. Charging for a service, however, is much more reasonable – and that’s what this is. It would be charging for the service of connecting users.
...in other news:
millions of P2P users switch from spyware infested KAZAA to one of the hundreds of other gnutella spawned P2P networks available all over the world.
I mean, jesus, I don’t know which is the stupider idea: trying to extract money from users sharing illegitimate content or believing that the recording industry will “opt-in” when/if KAZAA turns their first dime.
What planet do these fscks live on? …cause I want to move there so I can be high all the time too.