UK May Have Legal P2P By Year’s End
The UK may have legal music via P2P licensed at the broadband ISP level by the end of the year, according to the Register. The British government apparently pushed for talks between ISP’s and the music industry as a preferred solution to legislation. South Korea is close to a similar solution.
It is a radical shift and many hurdles remain to be overcome including wholesale agreement from fractured recording and publishing industries. But all sides seem to agree that something must be done to re-monetize music and no other plan seems to offer similar upside.
COMMENTARY: It could take much longer for a broad experiment…
to be hammered out – perhaps until the end of 2009 – but licensed
P2P is coming and the UK will lead the way. Watch for similar moves
along with a so called "iPod tax" on devices that copy and share music
to come to the US in the next 2-3 years as well.
And think about how legal P2P would force a shift in many business models. Music 3.0 is right around the corner.
They are never gonna stop file sharers. There are web-based p2p services like FilesWire which work directly from the web and can be used on any internet connected computer. (work,internet cafe,uni, etc). So how are they going to pinpoint p2p activity if it is not even tied to your ip address.