Mathew Ingram is skeptical about the notion of a mandatory ISP tax to cover music. The industry backers say it's akin to the radio situation, but it's not:

Griffin says that “eventually” advertising might cover the charges, and those who wanted to surf without ads would have the choice to pay the fee. But it sounds like in the beginning the fee would be mandatory -- even for those who don’t do any downloading at all. Does that sound fair? No. We have mandatory fees for things like education and road-building, but I don’t think music licensing falls into the same category. What about people who pay for songs legally through iTunes -- do they get a free pass, or do they have to pay twice? Maybe Warner sees this as a way to put Apple out of business.

With radio, anyone listening to a station that plays music is getting the music. With an ISP, that's simply not the case, so there's a basic equity problem here. The industry is still casting around for a way to retain their current level of bloat, and it's just not going to work out.

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