A system similar to this is already operation in six countries. It is called Fundamo, and was originally developed for mobile payments across the GSM network. The architecture, and an implementation, developed by Fundamo are licensed to network operators who partner with banks to offer this service on their networks. The company was founded in 1999 in South Africa, is backed by two of the biggest financial institutes on the continent, and has numerous patents to its name. Its system will be rolled out in another six countries this year, under various brand names. See www.fundamo.com.
The most advanced cell phone payment system has been developed by a South African company called Fundamo (www.fundamo.com) that has been around for over four years now, backed by two of the biggest VC funds in South Africa.
The system is running in six countries across sub-Saharan Africa, and will be rolled out in another six countries next year. It allows people to instantly transfer any amount of money from one cellphone to another, to top up airtime, buy prepaid electricity tokens, pay bills, and move money between different accounts. The user is also issued with a debit card linked to the same account which can be used for tillpoint purchases and to withdraw or deposit money into the account via ATMs. The Fundamo system has its own complete banking back end system, and boasts lower transaction costs than any other method of transacting.
The system is ideally suited for developing countries which often do not have a strong physical infrastructure to support payments, and whose citizens are vulnerable if carrying large amounts of cash. Mobile operators and banks license the architecture and software from Fundamo to run their own payment gateways, which interoperate.
...is to allow unlimited fair use copying, and perhaps additional copying for others, but then tax the media (and players) and use this revenue to remunerate the copyright holders. Robert Cringely wrote an article on this awhile ago, where he demonstrated that the revenues raised this way, with quite reasonable taxes on media and equipment, would equal or surpass the existing recording industry revenues. Distribution of revenues could be based on statistics gleaned from P2P sharing services, or a similar model as is used for radio or switchboard/elevator music. It's worth noting that media and equipment (including laser printers) are already taxed for this purpose in Germany and some other European states (the inevitable interesting question: if one is paying a tax on blank media for copyright holders, then surely one MUST have the right to copy ?)
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A system similar to this is already operation in six countries. It is called Fundamo, and was originally developed for mobile payments across the GSM network. The architecture, and an implementation, developed by Fundamo are licensed to network operators who partner with banks to offer this service on their networks. The company was founded in 1999 in South Africa, is backed by two of the biggest financial institutes on the continent, and has numerous patents to its name. Its system will be rolled out in another six countries this year, under various brand names. See www.fundamo.com.
The most advanced cell phone payment system has been developed by a South African company called Fundamo (www.fundamo.com) that has been around for over four years now, backed by two of the biggest VC funds in South Africa. The system is running in six countries across sub-Saharan Africa, and will be rolled out in another six countries next year. It allows people to instantly transfer any amount of money from one cellphone to another, to top up airtime, buy prepaid electricity tokens, pay bills, and move money between different accounts. The user is also issued with a debit card linked to the same account which can be used for tillpoint purchases and to withdraw or deposit money into the account via ATMs. The Fundamo system has its own complete banking back end system, and boasts lower transaction costs than any other method of transacting. The system is ideally suited for developing countries which often do not have a strong physical infrastructure to support payments, and whose citizens are vulnerable if carrying large amounts of cash. Mobile operators and banks license the architecture and software from Fundamo to run their own payment gateways, which interoperate.
...is to allow unlimited fair use copying, and perhaps additional copying for others, but then tax the media (and players) and use this revenue to remunerate the copyright holders. Robert Cringely wrote an article on this awhile ago, where he demonstrated that the revenues raised this way, with quite reasonable taxes on media and equipment, would equal or surpass the existing recording industry revenues. Distribution of revenues could be based on statistics gleaned from P2P sharing services, or a similar model as is used for radio or switchboard/elevator music. It's worth noting that media and equipment (including laser printers) are already taxed for this purpose in Germany and some other European states (the inevitable interesting question: if one is paying a tax on blank media for copyright holders, then surely one MUST have the right to copy ?)