Kazaa, Verizon propose to pay artists directly

Jim Guerinot, a board member of Don Henley's and Sheryl Crow's Recording Artists Coalition and the manager of No Doubt, Beck and The Offspring, is such a fan of digital music that he has ripped his CD collection into MP3s and listens to them on his portable Apple iPod on his daily bicycle commute to work.

But you won't find any of his artists' work posted on Pressplay, the Net subscription service backed by their record labels. He removed them, he says, because the acts weren't getting paid.

The record industry has responded to the immense popularity of file-sharing —and trading of copyrighted material — by suing to close the operations down. But as one swap site shuts, others take its place, and more people are downloading now than ever.

An unlikely alliance of swap-service Kazaa and telephone and Internet giant Verizon is floating a proposal to break the logjam of lawsuits: Computer manufacturers, blank CD makers, ISPs and software firms such as Kazaa will pool funds and pay artists directly.

"Historically, there's been a clash between the content community and new technology, back to the player piano," says Verizon vice president Sarah Deutsch. "We're proposing the idea of a copyright compulsory license for the Internet, so peer-to-peer distribution would be legitimate and the copyright community would get compensation. It's hard to get the genie back in the bottle."

Kazaa lobbyist Phil Corwin says a $1-a-month fee per user on Internet providers alone (it's unclear whether costs would be passed along to subscribers) would generate $2 billion yearly: "We're talking about a modest fee on all the parties who benefit from the availability of this content."

Recording Industry Association of America president Hilary Rosen calls the proposal "the most disingenuous thing I've ever heard. It's ridiculous."

But Guerinot isn't ready to dismiss it out of hand: "Any model that starts to accommodate monetizing the artists is worth looking into."

Guerinot is upset that the labels have tried to combat technology with alternatives that have been widely rejected by the public. MusicNet and Pressplay offer limited downloads, but not in the preferred MP3 format, and they usually can't be transferred to portables or burned to CDs.

"It would be like me opening a video store, charging 10 times what others were charging and only offering videos in the Beta format," Guerinot says. "In any business, when you have billions of downloads occurring, you don't say we're going to ignore that market and try to create something else. You serve your customers."

Recording Industry Association of America president Hilary Rosen calls the proposal "the most disingenuous thing I've ever heard. It's ridiculous."

why? because the artists actually get paid this way?

you are scum mrs rosen.

ditto. just because it's simple don't mean it won't work.

or is it because the artists will get paid more than than riaa.

money hungy bastards.

Once more, the RIAA (or R.I.P. = Record Industry Politburo) shows they don't give a rat's keister about the artist OR the consumer. Their selfishness ("We want it ALL"), paranoia (this overemphasis-bordering-upon-fetish on copy protectionism) and contempt will yet catch up with them.

The point is clear.

The artist get paid directly!

Funny how the RIAA claims to want to give money to the artist but when file swapping companies want to actually CHARGE USERS and PAY ARTIST DIRECTLY they want nothing to do with it. Normaly I wouldn't pay for downloading songs but if the money is going DIRECTLY to the artist and not to some money hungry suits that want to profit from other peoples talent, I would gladly pay anwhere from 3-8 dollars a month.

Way to go Kazza!!

Hail Mp3!!!

oh darn hillary rosen wont get her fat-ass paychecked anymore

I would like to say that this proposal is one of the best I have heard. This payment scheme would pay artists directly for their work.

Also, consumers would benefit from their favorite tunes at their desktop.

This proposal even pays artists for music shared on DECENTRALIZED sharing systems too!