Now, you remember the gripes about letting the government
sniff the net traffic, well, its just getting worse.

I am not sure how much you have heard or know about
IPRED, but in essence, heres what it means:

The directives essential part is to let copyrightholders
(taste the word, copyrightholders, pretentious, isnt it?)
wich by extension means record companies and movie companies
trace and log ip adresses and tie those with a physical
person by demanding information from the internet service
providers. When the information about the person behind
the IP number is found, the companies can use that information
to demand that the person cease and desist his filesharing
OR send out a demand for payment. Lets face it, im pretty
sure that the figures will be something like this:

1x shared random record company product/one hit wonder
multiply that by instances found on a google search
for ANY and ALL words by themselves from the artists name
and the songs title. (hint, do a google search on the word
“and” and take 1 beer for each search hit.. you’ll be on
a one year bender before you die of liver cirrosis)
This is just an example, but just for the sake of argument
i’ll show you some real events and facts:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3096340.stm

See the line that says this:
Each copyrighted song carries a maximum penalty of $150,000 (£94,260)

WHAT THE HELL?!?

150,000 dollars? For one song? It better come on a disc thats
made from platina, then gilded using 24 carat gold and THEN
studded with real diamonds from some african mine.

“It is however, quite funny to see some official person that has
a sense of humor. From the same article:

During a Senate judiciary hearing, Senator Dick Durbin questioned
RIAA president Cary Sherman on the tactics being used.

“Are you headed to junior high schools to round up the usual suspects?”
Mr Durbin asked.

Mr Sherman defended the stance, saying the RIAA was trying to
spread the message that file-sharing is illegal.

“Yes, there are going to be some kids caught in this, but you’d be
surprised at how many adults are engaged in this activity,” he said.”

Really? I didn’t know. But since people are being sued left and
right, regardless of them being in possession of a computer or not
and even regardless if they are DEAD OR ALIVE!
(see this link: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050204-4587.html )

And while you are at it, read this aswell
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060424-6662.html

Is this the people want to be able to read our internet traffic
and give them the ability to request information about us from
our internet service provider?

Seriously. The record companies can all go to hell in their
little gilded chariot while chanting “cash cash cash” for
all I care.

So, what do I want to say with all this? Well, im merely
making a comment on what I think.

Do I have a solution for all this? Well, not a solution
thats watertight, but let me give you a hint:

WHY should I pay for a piece of plastic when I dont have
a cd player out side of my PC, Why should I consider
buying same said piece of plastic and put it in my PC
when I actually risk infecting it with various types
or rootkit and other spyware?

I could think of a subscription service model.
Lets think for a while, shall we?

Music doesnt have to be of the utmost quality for it to be
good for casual listening, webradio is a good example, and
to be honest, even in some cases thats higher quality then
what it needs to be. Lets say that some large music company,
lets take SonyBMG (rootkit anyone?)

They build a subscription service for wich you pay, lets
say 10-20$ a month, I personally think that 20$ is where
the limit is at, but thats because I dont listen to music
that often. As I said before, I dont have a CD player
and its kinda hard to get download things and play
on a vinyl disc player (maybe i should check if that actually
works before i mention it though) anyhow, im digressing
and rambling, back to the point.

They build this subscription service that contains their
ENTIRE catalog, reason for capitalization is that i dont
want Christina Aguilera and the rest of this gang, I dont
even want to limit myself to older music or metal I want
to see it all there. What happens is that I get access
to the catalog, and I can build a playlist in their player
a player that is tied to the account naturally, And I
can play whatever I have in that playlist, I can add
and remove whatever songs I want in that playlist.

Now.. wheres the need for downloading songs except for
mp3 player use? I can still see some issues there, but
combine the playlist items with a “digital purchase”
lets play with the idea that greed gets toned down.
I have my little playlist that displays the songs I
want, it displays the songs artist, songname, runtime
and a purchase link. This opens a new window that gives
me the option of purchasing this song lets say somewhere
along the lines of 50 to 75 cents. Tag these songs
digitally, not with any DRM, but with a simple digital
label stating where the file originated from, wich
user it originated from and date of purchase. Shouldn’t
be too hard to do would it? Ok, lets expand this a little.
Lets say that someone wanted to have this little piece
of plastic. There shouldnt be too hard to pick together
another playlist and have that sent to some of all the
myriad of cd burner software out there. Cd gets burned
and lightscribe or similar is used to put the subscribers
Name, Adress etc etc on the actual disc or on a potential
cover. This alone would make such a service interresting
to me. Naturally this disc would be a little more expensive
then buying the tunes alone, because you have the material
costs for the discs, the covers (wich needs no artwork
or, let the customers design their own, after all, they
are the only ones that will see the disc) so lets say
another 10 dollars to get a cd.

Ok, I might have to search for a while to find
the songs id like from a single companies stock, but
what if the companies went together into this using
an external organisation like the RIAA to assemble
their collective catalogs? Ok, there will ALWAYS be
those that feel that they would rather have the mp3
for free. There is no getting around that, but also
many of what today is counted as pirates are also stating
give us a viable alternative. Well, heres my 2 cents.
or …. 50 if you please

Could you accept this, or do you have another solution
please feel free to leave it in the comments section.