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An Access To Music Charge (AMC) paid to rights holders by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) has been proposed as a solution to the problem of illegal downloading over peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. This possible solution comes from a meeting of the Steering Group (SG), an influential international forum composed of ISPs, online music services, independent and major record labels, authors' societies, lawyers, technology experts, and a futurologist.
Such a system could provide revenue to the rights holders that are currently at a loss for them. In return, users would have access to the global recorded music repertoire without DRM restrictions and no direct cost to exchange downloaded files. ISPs and music service providers (MSPs) would have the opportunity to generate additional revenues if a significant percentage of P2P sharing was monetized. This comes at a time when ISPs are finding the benefits of creating partnerships with music rights holders, while national governments are preparing or threatening to make legislations in this area.
More work still needs to be done on the proposal, including how it will affect current business models of services such as iTunes. The cost of distributing the monies would be very expensive, too. Numbers were projected by a group, Deltica, in the UK that studied ISP user activities. According to them, the ratio of P2P downloads to legal downloads is 20:1. So if the ISPs converted 5% of the P2P downloads into revenue, the gross figure would be something around $326m, something ISP executives say that ISPs would be very interested in. This is projected by Music & Copyright to have increased the pro forma total digital recorded music revenues in 2007 to $4.1bn from 2.9bn.