Wednesday: a comment by patrick dax indicates that the music industry
is not considering the radical change suggested by the original
commentary behind this blog. In particular, the spokesperson in the
German article cited by the comment
explicitly rejects the idea of distributing music for a lump sum. What
the industry group actually wants to do is tantalizingly left unsaid,
but the article mentions existing models that are deemed unsuccessful.
This leaves me with the impression that industry association is
considering some important new initiative and is deliberately raising
hopes.
I just heard from two contacts in Denmark that their branch of the
International Federation of Phonogram and Videogram Producers (IFPI)
(the equivalent of America’s RIAA and MPAA)
has seriously proposed allowing unrestricted downloads of music over
peer-to-peer networks, in exchange for a modest monthly fee to be
charged to all ISP users.
This is a significant crack in the armor of the industry copyright
zealots, and it’s strange that I can’t find an English-language
announcement anywhere. My contacts say that the suggested monthly fee
is 100 kroner, or approximately 16 Euros.
Of course, European governments have been calling for DRM-free music for some time.
And Steve Jobs shook up the digital rights/restrictions industry back in
February when he
explicitly endorsed DRM-free distribution
(and began to follow up in April with
DRM-free songs from EMI).
But the Danish IFPI represents the content producers themselves. When
they start to buy in to the concept of unrestricted, all-you-can-eat
downloading, the end of the debate is in sight.
Incidentally, the stances taken against DRM by governments seem based
on promoting competition (letting other companies offer devices
compatible with the iPod), a goal obviously driven also with an eye to
reducing the hold of a U.S. product on European markets. The
governments probably aren’t motivated by any principled defense of
freedom. You can see the same contrast in yesterday’s
agreement between Microsoft and the EU
to end an anti-trust lawsuit. The result meets the EU’s goals of
promoting competition, because Microsoft has to show its code and
protocols to competing companies. But it can still charge royalties,
thus ruling out the use of the protocols by free software. An
agreement in defense of freedom would have required Microsoft to
publish its protocols openly or to adopt open standards.
In a context where law allows industry to control technology,
decisions still come from industry leaders rather than from the
public. For instance, I’m a traditional kind of music listener who
doesn’t download tracks, and buys a lot of CDs. But if my ISP starts
charging me the equivalent of 16 Euros a month whether or not I
downloaded music, then to hell with it–I’ll quit buying CDs and get
all my music online.
Another awkward aspect of this solution is that it’s hard to fit a
licensing model to different types of technological access. Charging
money per ISP connection may work where the average household has its
own ISP account, but what about people who take advantage of free Wifi
access or shared a pooled connection?
The admission that the pay-per-unit model doesn’t work for online
music is valuable, even if it comes from one small corner of the
economically advanced world and is encumbered with logistical
concerns.
Noon: More detail from a contact in Denmark (still no official announcement
or media report in English!):
-
The IFPI has not mentioned the license in emails or on their
homepage. -
The license was
suggested by the executive manager of the ISPI, Jesper Bay, in an
interview
titled “Pay fixed price for unlimited digital music.” But the next
day, he called for watermarking music files to prevent piracy. -
The license was
backed
by IFPI chairman Jens Otto Paludan who says a model license will be
available in 2008, and compares the music license to TV channels–or access to water!
Links to news media and others in Danish:
http://www.computerworld.dk/art/41058?cid=2&q=Musik&a=cid&i=2&o=24&pos=25
http://newz.dk/ifpi-foreslaar-musikabonnementer
http://www.berlingske.dk/article/20071012/kultur/110111278/
http://www.piratgruppen.org/spip.php?article839