Music is neither a product nor a service. It is a by-product of artists contributing to a culture. We pay them for the result because that is the best way to determine if their contributions are worthwhile. I love Cory Doctorow's idea of setting up a flat rate collection service for, say, college bands and collecting 50c per US college student per month for unlimited access to college band music for whatever purposes they desire. It is, frankly, a stroke of genius, even if it's just a repetition of the revolutionary model of the past when radio appeared to challenge record sales. Extend the model to the ISP level and we have a functional economic framework to build on. If your Internet subscription includes unlimited access to a music library as part of the flat fee, then suddenly file sharing is not a problem any more (since everyone has the library, the only reason to torrent is for faster access) and neither is DRM (why try to limit the use of what is free to everyone?) and any investment in music is automatically transferable (because the library will still be accessible on your new device and ISP too). The entire debate boils down to "how much do we charge for this?".
Mokalus of Borg
PS - Doubtless music publishers would want a few hundred dollars per customer per month.
PPS - They'd base their argument on the price of CDs.
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