these days some of our friends with the closest musical tastes dont even live in the same city as us since all these networks popped up.

so i’m going to stick by my point above on that: if the high speed interweb shut down tomorrow people would go out and buy more CDs than before.

and i do agree with you that there are people who will just forego music in the absence of options, but we have yet to see how people would actually deal with the plug being pulled on p2p sharing before we can decide what the pawn’s next move is

No. I think we’d see a sharp spike in CD/DVD/USB “trading”!

The key word in your question is “sales”. The question presumes that every illegal download, or a healthy proportion of them, represents a lost sale.

What about those who only download because there’s no/low cost? It seems more likely that they would just forego some music rather than increase their spending. Another situation that wouldn’t increase CD sales is those who already bought the CD and download illegal versions so they don’t have to deal with the DRM. Not having a non-DRM version might actually bring the CD sales down.

The industry often uses the same presumption as the basis for its estimated loss of revenue figures from downloading, However, there is no way of determining if the presumption is accurate. So any conclusions about economic impact based on it are, at best, inaccurate and, at worst, total fantasy.

i’m not saying i support it, but i do wonder - if the broadband ISPs shut down tomorrow, don’t you think we would see a massive rise in CD sales again(or albums on USB keys)?

Griffin criticizes the “tip jar” approach and then sets up a “tip jar”.

Somehow this is supposed to provide “access to all the music recorded in the world in exchange for a small fee”. How? considering the extremely limited scope of the plan in terms of content sources, countries etc.?

Despite the best efforts of the RIAA and its PR firms it’s clear most people downloading MP3s don’t “feel guilty” and “digital watermarks as a psychological barrier” sounds like more of the same tactic. You use a watermark to identify something. You identify something so you can control its use or distribution. That sounds like DRM to me, and DRM is what this whole idea seeks to avoid, isn’t it?

Lastly, Griffin says he doesn’t want the government to have any part of this. You claim that it’s “implausible” not to have government intervention and that Griffin only says that to re-assure Silicon Valley. So is Griffin lying? and why?

*Rolls eyes*

Yeah, it’s a tip jar. But who wouldn’t want to have access to all the music recorded in the world in exchange of a small fee and without having to feel guilty or without risking a lawsuit? OK, people can download Terabytes of MP3 in a month and then cut their subscriptions all of a sudden but you can embedd digital watermarks into the files just to increase the psychological barrier against that in a way that doesn’t compromise too much user’s privacy.

Anyway, I think Griffin said that he wasn’t planning on calling the Government just to dismiss irrational fears coming from Silicon Valley who get shivers anytime they hear the word “tax” ;-)

And as for government intervention, Griffin says in the interview: “I assure you, we have no such interest in government running this or having any part of it.”

I think being explicit about what you’re planning is important. Otherwise you say “hey, I’ve got a great idea — let’s have a magical system where we just get cash to the right people but it feels free” and then duck when anyone pushes you for specifics. Griffin seems to be making a nice living for himself pushing radical ideas without the details to back them up, or any apparent interest in seeing that the stakeholders feel its in their best interests, which is part of why the French deal broke down.

well, it seems to me that until now Griffin hasn’t been very explicit about the voluntary/compulsory nature of his plan. This discussion started a few weeks ago when he did a presentation on SXSW. Only after that did Warner approached Griffin. After all, it’s totally implausible to reach a solution like this one with no intervention from the Government. And if this means copyright law must be changed, well, I think then it’s just a matter of reaching some sort of consensus between ISPs, performers, composers, labels and collective rights societies. It’s no unsurmountable obstacle.

You have to remember that in 2006 the French were very close of approving a blanket licence. Unfortunately, it didn’t pass in the Senate.