There is a lot of concern in the copyright industry about file sharing. But file sharing is really just a new distribution model. It is asymmetric. The old way was linear - that is, music was recorded by the artist paid for by the label, and then shipped out to the retailer who sold it to the punter. Asymmetric distribution has punter distributing the content to other punters.

You can see that in terms of distribution this is extremely efficient. It means that the content is consumed based on a peer-recommended model. If you combine this with the concept of a call-to-action being supplied by any number of various mainstream or alternative media appearances for a piece of content, you can see that what you get is super-distribution.

This acceleration of velocity of distribution afforded primarily by P2P networks of course represents a problem for the mainstream content owners because they haven't figured out how to ensure that they can get in to the process and get paid.

Most business managers suffer from the problem of thinking that the world should understand their business model and should conform with it. So they try to ensure that laws are interpreted so as to require people to conform so that they can get paid. That is the case with regard to P2P and content industries.

The problem is that there is now a critical mass of people who are using super-distribution to consume content. These consumers would probably be quite happy to pay for the consumption of the content if there was some easy methodology for that to take place.

There are fundamentally three ways that that could happen:

1. A piece of code is inserted into the piece of content that ensures that a micropayment is logged against a consumer's account. The problem with this is that it would require the person at the super-distribution node to insert what is essentially a piece of DRM into a file as it is being ripped. That won't work.
2. The ISP tracks the upstream or downstream traffic of a user and then charges a levy for those pieces of content that are copyrighted. The problem with this is that it means that the ISP becomes a tax collector and has an obligation to watch the customers' traffic and charge them. Very intrusive and would add a substantial amount of work to the ISP and a commensurate level of cost.
3. There could be a levy at the end where the memory is purchased that is distributed to copyright owners. This of course adds cost to a retail purchase which may be somewhat of a problem for the distributors of the memory. In order for it to be fair, and enable copyright owners to be paid, it would also require some level of reporting. However the reporting of superdistribution on a macro level - i.e. the overall traffic pattern of P2P content movement, if checked, would be less intrusive than option 2. Consumers may even be prepared to allow for tracking of downloads to take place, if they were in the knowledge that their activity was legal and that they couldn't be sued for having a file on their device.

Of course all of these are inherently problematic. The point here is not that. The point is that when you have a more powerful force than you yourself are you can not expect for the other more powerful force to suddenly and passively be prepared to comply with your standards, your business model, your culture.

The music industry, along with the other copyright industries, was very successful for generations, in having copyright laws amended to quite reasonably, reflect the way that consumer activity changed. They were able to do this because they were able to channel their energy and subjugate their personal feelings to finding common vectors of interest. That create a powerful force of persuasion.

Now they are variously having to deal with the ISP industry and the public themselves. The Telco industry is actually bigger than the content industry so it is going to be hard for the content industry to get the ISP's to bow down and face the East. And this time round the public has channeled its vectors of action, quite unwittingly, and become a self managed and self directed crowd. Not a milling mob but a very motivated, and well informed army of people with intent, means, and motivation. Very hard to deal with that kind of force when it is organized.

The only way to win in any negotiation is first to get people to the table to negotiate. The public that downloads using P2P has gotten tired of the content industry, and certainly the music industry, and its publicity shenanigans.

The music industry needs to understand that it is the lead player in this game and that what it does will be followed closely by other parts of the content industy. If it fails at what it is trying to do that would be bad for it and the other parts of the content industry. Unfortunately as a result of its own hubris, the music industry is well on its way to failing - failing to understand the dedication of the P2Pers, failing to understand that the Telco's are much better educated at technology than the music industry - and that these Telcos will play the content industry at it own game of divide and conquer.

The space that the music industry needs to be playing in is to develop a way to get the consumer on their side and to make the payment of copyright fees seem invisible to the consumer. This requires some inventive and lateral thinking. It requires some extensive econometric modelling and it requires some bold action.

The obvious first step in this is to do the obvious - to go to the government and ask for a "blank media" levy to be brought into being. This will go a long way to solving the problems that go with inaction.

In terms of how to distribute the funds that are raised - well that is another question to be dealt with in another article.