Another Register story in a similar domain, and reports that an ISP package that allows P2P file sharing may be brought to market by the end of the year.
As much previously reported, ever since the original Napster got everyone in the record industry in such a stew, there have been talks of having a licensed P2P file sharing system whereby record labels allow the sharing of their music in return for a royalty fee paid to it by the P2P service provider and made through either subscription fees or ad revenues or both.
Despite much development in the technology required to monitor the sharing of files - which would be used to work out what cut of revenues each content owner was due - no one has really managed to bring a legit P2P to market - though, of course, Q-trax, which had a high profile false start earlier this year, is reportedly about to launch their service, with two major labels on board.
Q-trax will be primarily ad funded at launch, though a variation on the legit P2P service model that has also been long discussed is one where your ISP charges a levy on your net access subscription which is used to pay the content owners who allow customers of that ISP to share music. Making the ISP the controller of licensed file-sharing is arguably the best solution because the net provider can better monitor file-sharing traffic, and they already have a billing relationship with consumers.
A P2P licence bundled into an ISP package is also arguably the first step towards a more involved licensing system whereby net providers charge a TV licence style levy to all their customers, the revenues from which are distributed to content owners, like record companies and film studios, who make their music available for free over the net.
There has been lots of talk about such a system as being the future of content on the web - though how such a system works, how content use is monitored, how money is distributed, especially to smaller content owners, whether the ISPs would take on that role, and what it would mean for the pay-as-you-download content services that dominate the digital market at the moment are all questions that have been much asked but not often especially well answered.
Anyway, with reports some majors, in particular Warner, have expressed a willingness to proactively consider the kind of licensing arrangements that could get some kind of ISP-controlled content-access licence off the ground, The Register seems to think a label approved bundled ISP/licenced P2P package could be available in the UK by the end of the year. Whether that will be the ISP/P2P service that the Beggars Group and the Playlouder website have been trying to get off the ground for years I don't know.