Legalise exchange of copyrighted files in P2P : your opinion?

[bob751]

Very often P2P networks are used for exchange of copyrighted files. This exchange is illegal. RIAA is trying to stop this by killing P2P, but it hardly looks effective. How to find realistic solution of the problem?
Let's try to imagine such a network, where problem of illegal exchange of copyrighted files is solved. How it could look like? No idea :^)
This depend only on current P2P users, if they'll accept another model or not. If it will look fair to them or not. So here i place a poll to try making this clear : what can be the reason for P2P users to move in a P2P-network with legal way for copyright files exchange.

[Gutrguy]

If there was an 'legal' network with the availability of current networks i would be willing to pay a small monthly fee for unlimited downloads of music, movies, games, programs, ebooks, etc. Realistically, this will neever happen. The companies and people that own the copyrights to the content will never be able to reach an agreement to have the same size catolouge that is currently available...and lets just pretend they DID happen to reach some sort of agreement, the monthly price that would be charged would be more than myself and most others would be willing to pay.

Also i would not want to have to share my bandwidth if i am having to pay for a service. The model you describe is exactly that. I would be paying a big company (or groups of companies and rightsholders) for the privilage of using my own bandwidth. If they want to charge a reasonable fee and will host everything on their servers, i would be willing to pay $10 a month ($10 a month, $45 for 6 months, or $80 for 12 months)

The system that is currently set up (iTunes, etc) charges approx. $1 a song no matter what the atrist or song legnth. I have seen cd's with 21 songs and 45 minutes of music...others with 13 songs and 75+ minutes of music. At those rates you might as well go to the local tape / cd shop and buy the pressed cd with the artwork and everything for roughly the same price as a 13 - 15 track downloaded from one of these services...and you would get more for your money buying the store bought pressings.

[bob751]

Originally Posted by Gutrguy

Realistically, this will neever happen.
.................
i would be willing to pay $10 a month ($10 a month, $45 for 6 months, or $80 for 12 months)

Let's look. You are ready to pay reasonable price , and you even said what is this price. This price is something like $10/month. Statistics says that in 2003 there where ~83000000 P2P users. We can just supid way estimate this market as ~$830000000 /month (!). And growing 20-30% a year. Not bad! If such a market stay unused, there must be a critical point where solution will be found. I think.

[TankGirl]

Originally Posted by bob751

Very often P2P networks are used for exchange of copyrighted files. This exchange is illegal. RIAA is trying to stop this by killing P2P, but it hardly looks effective. How to find realistic solution of the problem?
Let's try to imagine such a network, where problem of illegal exchange of copyrighted files is solved. How it could look like? No idea :^)
This depend only on current P2P users, if they'll accept another model or not. If it will look fair to them or not. So here i place a poll to try making this clear : what can be the reason for P2P users to move in a P2P-network with legal way for copyright files exchange.

Welcome to P2P-Zone, bob751.

I think there is no going back to a single network model, legit or not... RIAA blew that possibility by killing the original Napster instead of buying it. Consequently we are in a situation where there are dozens if not hundreds of networks with different technical features and orientations - a good thing in itself as it speeds up the technical evolution. The only reasonable way I see to solve the legitimity problem is simply to legalize all private, non-commercial p2p.

EFF's proposition of tax-type flat fee compensation has some idea in it but it is not a problem-free model either as it might easily help the music industry to consolidate its current position, giving them a lion's share of the collected money. If people are doing the distribution themselves with their own paid bandwidth on p2p no compensation should be paid to the music industry for the distribution itself. If the compensation model would give say 90 % of collected funds to the artists and the rest to the labels to cover their costs, I think I could support the model. That sort of arrangement being highly unlikely in practice in any near future I think it is better to have p2p evolving freely further like it is doing now and to continue the fight against media cartels on all fronts: technical, political, social - until they are weakened to a point where they are more willing to change their business models voluntarily.

- tg