Eric Pfanner devotes a column to the war between downloaders and the music companies link here. He has apparently reported frequently on the subject and here reviews the field after calling our attention to the Isle of Man which proposes on grounds of "tax efficiency" to put a small tax on the fee its citizens pay their internet service providers. The pot would be divided up according to the number of downloads and given to the copyright holder. Similar ideas have been proposed before. The companies are opposed so far.

Short of getting rid of copyright on music, this compromise might not be bad, if the fee charged remains low. In fact the island's government could push the issue by imposing it and not preventing non-islanders from down-loading, creating a sort of national Pirate Bay. How long could the companies hold out?

So, companies that produce copies and distribute them should be compensated by taxation because people can now turn to their own PCs and ISPs that provide a far cheaper and more convenient means of doing the same thing?

That would be as crazy as the taxpayer compensating the automobile industry because people found buying and maintaining second hand and more fuel efficient cars to be more attractive than buying new cars.

It would make more sense for lovers of music to pay the musicians they love, than the record industry they hate (that hates them and musicians alike).

The market for copies has ended.

The market for music is as strong as ever, so pay the musician that makes the music, not the man that copies it.

Isle of Man which proposes on grounds of "tax efficiency" to put a small tax on the fee its citizens pay their internet service providers

In return for this, P2P filesharing must become legal in the IoM. Otherwise taxpayers aren't getting anything for the extra tax.

The pot would be divided up according to the number of downloads and given to the copyright holder.

One problem with this is that people might try to game the system by e.g. setting up a computer to download stuff non-stop, or paying a botnet's owner to do so.

A better system might be to have a series of Content Compensation Funds (CCFs), which compensate content ptroducers for their work being used/copied, and to allow each taxpaer to choose which CCFs to support. I've written a more detailed version of this proposal.