Fall finally made it to Manhattan....I thought fire place weather would never get here.  Autumn is my favorite New York City season, so it's appropriate that Liz and I would end our residency in this fair city at the end of the fall, and begin our new adventures as winter snows on Reno.  We like the snow too.

She and I were discussing our move recently; the Internet, access options and the like -- much of what we've learned about Reno as well as our move options, the automobile we'll need to by, and even the property itself has come from the Internet.  In addition to our "work," we also live online.  Which too is appropriate because we met online -- but that's a story for another entry.  The point of this story is to relay a message we discovered while discussing such stuff, and sharing that message such as to contribute to the "Morphic Resonance" that might otherwise be engaged.

See, Liz has been on the production side of things all of her career; those who create the "content," as it were, in the way of music and video.  A gifted musician, published writer and professional producer, Liz also has a strong penchant for science and comes at technology from those directions. After a brief career as an actor, I took the programming perspective, starting with FORTRAN and assembler, graduating to 'C' and UNIX and TCP/IP, with post graduate work in business, Java and Jini.    We met in the middle and fell in love.  And we agree on most things....until recently.

After I got home from Amsterdam, we spent several days discussing many aspects of technology and its impact on our society.  And while Liz and I share the same zeal for the potential technology unleashes, we found we had to get very creative when it came to one recent development:  nastier.

Good old napster.com -- that pioneer of peer-to-peer possibilities.  From my perspective, of course it was a model that needed to evolve.  Peer-to-peer distribution is just about as friction less and empowering as we can imagine.  Such models are the basis of "hope" in the "hope for humanity" mantra.

"What about the musicians?"  she asked.

"What do you mean?"


"How do they get paid?"

Good question.  We might imagine a day when everything is free, everyone is wealthy, and abundance is ubiquitous due to the rational deployment of information technology, nano engineering and fuel cells; we might envision an open, sharing society where information is free, "intellectual property" is by definition public, and the ultimate in human security fulfillment dances with the devil of privacy.  We might even imagine the human species evolving in such a manner naturally over the next two or three decades.  But how we eat in the mean time might not be so clear.   Steps, most likely....step by step.

Okay, so how do the musicians get paid?  Musicians, producers, publishers, writers, agents, singers, voice-over talent, audio engineers, directors, production assistants, et al?  How do they all get paid when a single copy of any "product," when reduced to simply bits, can easily replicate without license or restraint?    Can't we "tax" the distributing entity?  Or the enabler?  Can we tax napster?  What about the ISPs?  Can we tax them?

While we may consider such options, the idea of a "tax" tastes foul; why can't there ba another way?  "Tax" implies accounting, collection, staffing, and costly operating adjustments for any business.    Is it fair to tax napster for simply enabling a community?  Is it fair to punish the community for something technology so easily allows?  Both Liz and I agreed that a "tax" was not the most optimal path, though it may be a step in a direction we'll take, at least for a while.   Arguably, the AOL/Time-Warner deal also yields a tax-like model for ensuring the production side is not too terribly short-changed, using AOL's subscription model to funnel the "tax" into the firm.

Subscription fees fall into similar categories.  And while not as daunting as a "tax," the model still has problems and still doesn't address the fundamental nature of the p2p model in terms of its fee subverting capabilities.  In other words, you still can't stop napster.  So what then?

"How about a voluntary contribution economy?" I asked at length.

"The Economy of Contribution?"

"Yeah," I replied.  "I like the sound of that.  Make voluntary fees available to all claimants a function of the technology based applause."

Take napster as an example.  I love the idea of it, the ease of it and the freedom of it.  At the same time, I appreciate the artists (and all the production implied) and do not wish to "steal" from them; if given the chance, I'd leave an appropriate fee.  Why not make a "suggested contribution" option available to all users, which goes to a fund rewarding all claimants?  I might even contribute more if I feel strongly about the work of a given artist, and ask that the funds be directed so.  If I enjoy it, I pay.  If I find value, I'm moved to applaud - with my contribution.  If given that chance, I for one would take it.  And I suspect there are others.

In fact, if Sally J. Goerner is right, there are a lot of us who would respond very favorably to such a model.  So many, in fact, that both Liz and I agree it would make a heck of a great .com.  So that's the message.  Given freely to whomever may choose to read this.  Start a p2p with a "suggested contribution" option, creating a direct path between artists (claimants) and consumers.  And the contributions will flow, free of friction, creating mountains of wealth in its wake.