EMI boss loves file sharing

[Lite]

THE BOSS of EMI's digital unit has come out saying that he is dead set against suing fans for file sharing.

Douglas Merrill, who is a refugee from Google, has told CNET that he is passionate about data and he has seen data that shows that file sharing is actually good for artists.

He said he is not sure about this, but he does not think the music business should be working out ways to stop it all the time. He said he was generally speaking against suing fans.

He added that, obviously, there is piracy that is quite destructive but again the data shows that, in some cases, file sharing might be OK.

Merrill added that what the record companies need to do is understand when filesharing is good and when it is not good. But he added that suing fans didn't feel like a winning strategy.

He is still mulling over his plans for success. The idea he is looking at is to adopt subscription or ISP fees. Merrill sees both of these as interesting. He is also considering targeted advertising but he does not want to limit his options.

Either way many people think that Merrill's approach should have been adopted by the music industry around the time that it was suing Napster.

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[voodoohippie]

I'd go for the $5/month Download all you want concept. Maybe a $25/Mo all you can download Movie campaign. I also like Ad support so long as its not causing pop ups when your just surfing the net. If the program is running, its OK to have banner ads at the bottom of the app or have it look like Qtrax. If you want to see what I'm talking about Download (even though it don't work) qtrax it will show you what I'm talking about. It shows ads in the player while the songs play. Now imagine AEM Ads Enforcement Management. The files can be copied all you want. If you copy to an ipod there may be an ads before the song plays. This will happen till the album is either bought, or enough ads are played to pay the royalty fee. Cheap and reasonable peace keeper. But so long as the RIAA is playing bully and won't even conceive of the notion of ad support the hobbyist will do whatever it takes to get around copy protection and what ever road blocks the RIAA can think of.