Dom

Instead the music industry should embrace file-sharers, said technology journalist and author Andrew Orlowski in a keynote speech at the Interactive In The City conference being held in Manchester.

Mr Orlowski said the record labels should look to novel ways to generate cash to support new artists.

One way could be the addition of a small surcharge to net subscription fees which could be shared among artists whose music is being downloaded.

Hi-tech pop swap

Mr Orlowski believes that the relentless pace of technological change is going to make it increasingly difficult to police pop swapping and tackle net piracy.

"Both the technology people and the music people are sharing the collective hallucination that technology will save them but it won't," he told BBC News Online.

Although he said that the current form of peer-to-peer networks let the music industry track down the most prolific file swappers, the next generation of technologies will render such efforts futile.

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Source: BBC

Matth

That is the implied assumption that EVERYONE is using it for nefarious purposes - on the same flawed principle as a tax on recordable media.

How about a tax on paper and ink cartridges, to compensate for their use in copying pages from books?

Dom

Good point.