Legal Music Sharing

Today's news is the crackdown on music sharing (coincidentally announced with the start of the school session). In the recent past there were headlines regarding the demise of small internet radio stations who were to hit with the enforcement of ASCAP royalty payments for each song played (around 5.7 cents). Long ago the news was ASCAP walking into retail stores demanding payment if they were found to be playing music in the public setting. It appears there is no perfect solution to completely satisfy artists and consumers. That being said, here's a thought to mull over and seems to slip under the legal highbar.

A local FM radio station routinely broadcasts a late night album play and reminds listners to "set their recorders". This music sharing system works similarily. Consumers post an interest in a song to a Central Clearing Computer (CCC). The CCC orders interest, identifies a source, and devises a play list, being sure to program even lower interest music to the "middle of the night" hours. Also, popular recently requested cuts would be queued with a delay so as not to hog air time. The consumer computers would be communicated a "play time" (aka: recording time) when the (recordable) streaming media is to be broadcast. The CCC allocates each individual source computer in turn, as the broadcaster for the individual cut to be played. Source computers and consumer computers are very much the same as in current file sharing networks. ASCAP fees (5.7cents) per song are paid by the CCC as the entity for the radio station. Since each play is utilized by a vast number of consumers I won't address the 5.7 cent fee except to say it might be covered by advertisement or an outright enrollment charge substantially less than other solutions proposed to date. (Okay, I'll offer one possibility - pay for priority).

In short, a request/fullfillment system would be operated substantially transparent to the consumer. A lower interest unfufilled request (after a few days) might require consumer prodding with a payment. An internet radio station would result probably characterized as having a diverse interest and with some repetion but much improved over commercial radio. Undoubtedly not perfect, but if feasable, would be a nice little programming challenge.