An idea: let's change the record industry
 

An idea brought by a Harvard Law School teacher:

New Spin on the Music Business
Rather than modify the current, failing copyright system to save the entertainment industry, one legal scholar is proposing radical plans for a system that he claims will pay artists fairly and bring more digital media to the people who crave it. But convincing the music and movie industries to embrace the idea seems unlikely, at least in the near future. Harvard Law School professor Terry Fisher detailed his proposal Friday at the Internet Law Program, a three-day event sponsored by the school's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Fisher advocates an alternative compensation system that would pay artists based on the popularity of their music. Artists would first have to register their work with the copyright office, which would track how many times that work was downloaded. Revenue generated from taxes on things like Internet access and the sale of MP3 players would then be used to pay the artists. Similar plans have been proposed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and University of Texas at Austin law professor Neil Netanel, among others.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0...w=wn_tophead_2

I like the way the story ends: