AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

Major label Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) this week hired Jim Griffin, former head of digital at Geffen and a vocal industry critic, to oversee a plan that would have consumers pay a monthly fee through their Internet service providers for unlimited access to music, Portfolio.com reported. “We’re still clinging to the vine of music as a product,” Griffin told Portfolio.com, dubbing the state of affairs “Tarzan” economics. “But we’re swinging toward the vine of music as a service. We need to get ready to let go and grab the next vine, which is a pool of money and a fair way to split it up, rather than controlling the quantity and destiny of sound recordings.”

Griffin forecasts that such ISP add-on fees could generate as much as $20 billion annually to distribute between artists and copyright holders.

He also criticized the industry’s legal campaign against file-sharing.

“I don’t think we should be suing students and I don’t think we should be suing people in their homes,” Griffin told Portfolio.

“We want to monetize the anarchy of the internet.”

He said Warner is creating a company to manage the ISP plan, in which the company hopes other rights holders will eventually take joint ownership.

From Digital Media Wire