A compulsory licence fee may provide Isle of Man with free music

A new government proposal on the Isle of Man could soon see its residents free to download unlimited amounts of music for free with the release of a music licence, although exact details of who will need a licence or the cost are currently unclear.

A proposal that could see around 80 000 of the Isle of Man’s residents able to download as much music as they want completely free is currently being considered by the local government and is based on a compulsory music licence fee being paid for by each person. A mixed response was received from many of the ISP representative present at the MidemNet debate recently when the suggestion was raised by Ron Berry, an Isle of Man minister.

Ron Berry said “At the end of the day, we’re not going to stop piracy. Embrace it… Had the music industry embraced [the original Napster], we’d have a very different medium today.”

Access to high-speed internet is available to every resident on the Isle of Man thanks to the achieving of a broadband penetration level of 100 percent. In a similar way to the TV licence schemes that are operated in the UK the new music licence will allow for unlimited access to audio files be paying music labels a blanket fee.

So far eligibility details and the cost of these music licences have not been suggested. At the moment there is no clear indication as to whether everyone on the Isle of Man, internet user or not, would have to pay for this licence nor has any information about DRM protection on downloaded tracks to prevent them from leaving the island been given.

The concept of this licencing model was considered by some of the ISP representatives to be a good idea, although some were concerned that rather than becoming the implicit part of the licencing process providers still wanted to just be the provider of people’s internet access.