"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."" This is an interesting development. Its CLEAR that costs would be passed down to subscribers. The logistics of this are apt to be messy, but essentially, this is like paying for intellectual property with a tax, which is redistributed via a use tracking system. The RIAA is opposed because they are cut out of the loop and because they don't get to monkey around with the industry using agressive fees. Either way, I imagine that this is going to make things more messy rather than less messy. People would LOVE to make file sharing legal, but when it comes time to pay for it, I think they are liable to all say "file trading is not my fault." |