So this guy Fred has an article in the Princeton paper suggesting that a lot could be cleared up by essentially putting a tax on internet users to divide up amongst the record companies. This has been a point of contention at Blogcritics.

Screw adding new taxes on people who use and people who don't use P2P. Also, shouldn't most of the money go to porno sites, since that's certainly a big percentage of downloads. Also, television producers. How many bazillion copies of South Park episodes are being swapped?

If the record companies would of their own initiative set up servers and charge a modest fee for downloads, they could in fact make a buttload of money. Consumers could get a better product, no crappy mislabeled files, decoys, etc. They could get good direct server downloads instead of having to get something of Billy Bob's home PC in Omaha.

But NO. They want to get stupid. No MP3s for anybody for no reason or we will stomp you.

All right, screw ya. The record companies can all go out of business.

Newer models will be emerging, and the artists will come out ahead. Hey, if the artists let you download songs from their server for a measly dime a throw and get a modest 100k downloads, they're probably already ahead of what they'd get from a major record label for a gold album.

There are a zillion ways to offer the music and make the money. The record companies are just too stupid and reactionary to even try to figure them out.

By the way, this Fred guy is, well, here:

"Fred von Lohmann is a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org), a membership-supported nonprofit organization that defends civil liberties and free expression in the digital world."

Dang, these are supposed to be the people DEFENDING FREEDOM in the digital realm. What kind of Orwellian definition of "freedom" does this proposal qualify under?