Collective Licensing for Web-Based Music Distribution

Two weeks ago we discussed a proposal from music industry veteran Jim Griffin to implement a monthly fee from ISPs in exchange for the legal distribution of copyrighted music. Now, quinthar brings news that Warner Music Group has hired Griffin with the intention to make that proposal a reality. Warner wants Griffin to establish a collective licensing deal with ISPs that would let the ISPs stop worrying about their legal responsibilities for file-sharing while contributing to a pool of money (potentially up to $20 billion per year) that would be distributed amongst the music industry. "Griffin says that in just the few weeks since Warner began working on this plan, the company has been approached by internet service providers 'who want to discharge their risk.' Eventually, advertising could subsidize the entire system, so that users who don't want to receive ads could pay the fee, and those who don't mind advertising wouldn't pay a dime. 'I.S.P.'s want to distinguish themselves with marketing," Griffin says. "You can only imagine that an I.S.P. that marketed a 'fair trade' network connection would see a marketing advantage.'"

Comments

overrated moderation should have limits.

[aleph42]

My post (the parent) was modded once up (interesting), then once down, with "overrated".

Meta-mods will see the final score and often won't be able to decide if the moderation was fair or not.

In this particular case I think that the "overrated" moderation was equivalent to simply disagreeing with the "interesting" moderation, which is very different to the guideline which states that "sometimes modderators will mod up a post without seeing that it was already modded up, resulting in an overrated post"

In general, I have already been modded "overrated" in the past and often felt that it was used as a convinient way not to give any reasons for modding down (of course, that is subjective; but it is a fact that someone will have the possibility to mod this way, which is not intended to happen).

The "overrated" option should only be available for posts of score 4 or 5, they should be limited to one per mod (only one of your 5 points could be used for "overrated").
Statistics should be made on the precentage of demoting done using "overrate", and should they be too high, the feature should be completly removed.
At the very least, meta-mods should be able to see the original score when judging an "overrated" moderation.

I would very much like to see the difference in use between "overrated" and "underrated", as I suspect many more people feel like hiding their reasons for demoting than for promoting.

And if this is offtopic, pray tell me where I should say that.