Paying For Content In The Future

Kyobu writes: "Ars linked to Put a Dime in the Heavenly Jukebox, a proposal for making information free as in speech without preventing producers from receiving money, by charging ISPs based on the number of tagged files they transferred, and then transferring the charge to users in the aggregate. Although maybe not perfect, it's a pretty interesting idea, and well-argued." There's several really good points in here, and while it probably isn't going to say anything you haven't thought of (and in many cases, rejected long ago as impractical), it's worth your time. Something is going to have to change -- the question is, will it be better or worse.

Comments

Why do we subsidize these people?

[abe ferlman]

The printing press put scribes out of work.

Trains and Automobiles put Pony Express out of business. Why do we worry about this?

Technology is eliminating the middleman, not the musician. If musicians don't get paid, they won't make good music. The market will solve the problem on its own if we let it work rather than trying to find a way to make the square peg solutions forced on us by old technologies fit into the the round hole of post-internet intellectual property.

Bryguy