William Fisher wrote this well-thought out article for CNET on an approach to establishing a compulsory license as a solution to P2P music sharing. It’s worth reading. Essentially he takes the position that a compulsory licensing system is going to be the only solution to the continued increase in music sharing on the Internet. A similar system was set up when radio stations started playing music — a way for the record industry to colllect fees without requiring rigid tracking and licensing of individual albums and songs.

The net result of a compulsory license would be a tax on ISPs, likely passed through to consumers, and then distributed to the recording industry. Fisher notes that CD burners and MP3 might also be taxed for the same reasons. For the record, I believe that this is a good thing. I think that this approach provides a good opportunity to legitimize song sharing while continuing to provide compensation to the artists. There’s even a possibility that more artists will be compensated as a result of this.

Read the article — see what you think.