Tuesday, August 12, 2008

UK Internet Provider Will Pay Music Labels For ‘Illegal’ Downloads

One of the UK’s top ISPs is to preparing to launch an unlimited music service that would see it pay record labels for songs illegally downloaded by its customers, paidContent.org can reveal. Playlouder MSP (music service provider), which first tried the model for itself back in 2003, said it will facilitate the service for the broadband operator, starting early next year. Co-founder Paul Sanders would not name the ISP, but a source last month told paidContent:UK Virgin Media (NSDQ: VMED) was holding some kind of talks with the vendor. Playlouder’s service lets users legitimately download from channels like Gnutella, BitTorrent and more - the list goes on - because the “deep packet inspection” technology, installed on the broadband infrastructure, recognises every song downloaded over the ISP network, no matter which protocol, and reimburses rightsholders accordingly. Subscribers to the music package will even be allowed to share tunes amongst themselves because every transfer is anonymously tracked using Audible (NSDQ: ADBL) Magic, but proliferation to non-subscribers will be blocked. The effective legitimisation of P2P channels many consider “illegal” could be a watershed - but depends on whether the ISPs can convince customers to pay a monthly fee for unlimited access they’re already getting gratis.
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-uk-isps-new-music-service-will-pay-labels-for-illegal-downloads/

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