Edited by author 02-10-2003 06:38 PM
This section seems particularly unworkable. Just as most DRM will be subverted, track marking will soon be subverted as well, as paranoid users will remove the marking and redistribute the files. I say this even though this item could truly enable a more fair system for artists (of all sizes and companies) to get paid. The copyright infringement threat hasn't stopped anyone so far.
Welcome feedback on it.

Edited by author 02-10-2003 06:09 PM
This is the weakest section of the initial proposal and the easiest to attack on technical grounds. Much more specific ideas and procedures need to be directed to the issue of collecting royalties from users of P2P networks.

How will the system be enforced upon uncooperative rogue services with sophisticated decentralized operations? Cynicism about the ability to do this at all has led many to the conclusion that a compulsory taxation scheme will be necessary to overcome this problem.

This system as described assumes that every transmission is completed. From practical experience, this is not the case with streaming services as many transmissions are stopped mid-stream by users. Partial transmissions need to be considered and handled by the system as well as complete transmissions.

Edited by author 02-10-2003 06:56 PM
There is no mention of the costs of operating the collective and how they will be assessed on members. This is a contentious issue with existing rights collectives and needs to be wisely and carefully designed.

ISRC (International Standard Recording Codes) have existed since 1991. Their stated functionality is similar. How is the proposed universal numbering system different from these?

Would penalties be set by law? Enforcement procedures would need to be streamlined as well in a marketplace of hundreds of thousands of content suppliers and service providers.

If an example of this kind of collective operating in any other industry? If so, it would strengthen the case that such an organization could meet the challenges it faces, both in getting established and in going forward.

I would like to offer a name for this collective: MusicTrack

I would like to see a little more explanation of how this collective would be created and governed. Specifically, how it would avoid corruption by powerful established interests in the copyright industries.

This feature will be controversial because it does not allow 'differential pricing' at the will of the rights holders and levels the returns from all copyrights. But it may be necessary to undo the current impasse and allow the online market to develop.

True, but the mainstream music industry has never been much concerned with legacy catalog sales, except when the numbers approach those of new releases.
The telling statistic is that 3% of titles sell 80% of the units (in 2000, re Billboard.)

First in the 1950s, when the major labels ceded niche genre and catalog artists to the indie labels, and more recently when retail consolidation made stocking slow-selling niche and catalog titles increasingly expensive and infeasible, the "industry" has turned its back on legacy recordings.

Nope, that was the incumbent telcos, and the baroque licensing regime.

A census is a good idea - current statistaical sampling methods are indeed flawed. However, without an incentive to take part, the attractions of free-riding are too high.

This is the key flaw in this proposal. It assumes the existence of concentrated bodies of 'rights holders' and 'servcie operators'. The vast majority of those creating music and sharing it do not fall within these categories.

This is demonstrably false, as the network has no knowledege of the content of packets. Without the key, you can't know if an encrypted file contains copyrighted music or video of my children.

This could be a dispersed database, like the DNS system, rather than a centralised one