Fisher's Price Continued

Seth has replied to Ed's post on Fisher's watermark music payment proposal (more on that in my original post).


Here I want to take issue with Seth's question: whether Fisher has suggested the "dreaded pay-per-view society." To which I would answer, not necessarily. As I understand Fisher's suggestion, money is collected as a tax/license on media or other digital music associated goods (bandwidth etc) and then is allocated based on use. So I pay what amounts to a fee for use of bandwidth or other goods and then the money I pay gets distributed (along with everyone else's) based on my (and everyone else's) listening etc. to the music. Artists are paid-per-view (although sampling may be more appropriate here and I don't know which Fisher proposes) but I pay-per-related-good. Some uses will in fact be pay-per-use (streaming if bandwidth is taxed and metered for example) but many will be flat rate (listening to an mp3 on a taxed hard drive for example).

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