This year's SXSW (South by Southwest Festival) has brought a very interesting idea, not a solution to the RIAA/DRM problems (at least not yet) but an idea meant to make people think that there may be different ways to solve a problem than what has been tried so far.

Shortly (the debate itself was rather short as the idea is still shaped like a potential point of action rather than a fully-developed direction), the main question came from a Cambridge Economics graduate, turned to music management, Mr. Petter Jenner.

For those who don't know, Petter Jenner is the manager of legendary artists Pink Floyd or The Clash... for those who knew this info, let's jump directly to the issue. Jenner actually made some calculations (Cambridge economist, remember?) and came up with a mind-blowing conclusion (not yet quite a proposal): should anyone who listens to music pay about 50 US dollars each year, this money would cover and exceed the needs of the music industry.

Quoting his words (via Wired), such a fee could "meet or exceed the current over the counter sales of the music industry at a far lower cost". And if this wasn't clear enough, Jenner was speaking about people being allowed to copy any of the tracks ever recorded by the mankind so far! Sounds at least interesting, isn't it?

Well, I am not totally into believing completely this calculation but wtf, even $100/year to get access to every music track on Earth without having some four-letter organization stalking you and sometimes invading your privacy is one thing to be seriously considered!

Unfortunately, even if there were many to support such a payment method, I guess there would still be some cheapos refusing to pay this as well. And even more, the music sales system was developed in such a way that implementing this global fee to serious results is yet impossible; even if such a movement from the traditional payment methods for music tracks granted more money to the artists, that would mean more money to the record companies and a much wider access to music for people.

Ah, and there's one more thing which could be blocking the way: that 4-lettered name, "stalking inc." organization I've told you about earlier. 4-letter names... I'll take a wild guess: RIAA? I don't know, these letters just crossed my mind...