| Sumario: | This article focuses on the music recording industry. The legal battles surrounding peer-to-peer file sharing are a losing proposition for everyone. The record labels continue to face lackluster sales, while tens of millions of American file-sharing music fans are made to feel like criminals. The litigation campaign against music fans does not appear to have substantially reduced the popularity of file-sharing networks and has failed to put a penny in the pockets of the artists. One solution is that artists and copyright holders deserve to be compensated fairly. A number of copyright law scholars and technology industry groups have suggested that alternative compensation systems be considered to replace the current lawsuit campaign against file sharers. Among the proposals, voluntary collective licensing deserves special consideration. The music industry would form one or more collecting societies to offer file-sharing music fans the opportunity to get legit in exchange for a reasonable regular payment. So long as they pay, these people would be free to keep doing what they are going to do anyway, share the music they love, using whatever software works best, without fear of being sued.
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