Grammy Magazine just published a feature I wrote on the debate around compulsory licenses as a possible solution to the digital music dilemma. For the record, I didn't pen the title that appeares with the story, and the use of the term "piracy" there wasn't my own.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in profits are already being earned each year through digital music distribution, so the pro-compulsories argument goes, but not by artists or labels. Instead, digital music fans pay ISPs, blank-disc manufacturers, and PC- or software-makers: each a necessary component in the digital-music food chain. Instead of criminalizing filesharing, advocates argue, why not introduce compulsory-license schemes that would pay creators for their work while taking into account the inherently uncontrollable nature of digital music distribution?
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"It's too late to put the genie back in the bottle, because the anarchy already exists," states [Jim Griffin, cofounder of the Pho digital entertainment discussion list and CEO of L.A.-based consulting firm Cherry Lane Digital]. "Monetizing that anarchy is the problem now. A new system might function like insurance systems do. Everyone pays in, and each of us draws out as needed."
