As Dave points out there is a meeting Friday at Harvard Law School called "Development of an Alternate Compensation System for Digital Media in a Global Environment". Interestingly, Canada's Supreme Court is having a meeting today pretty much on the same subject. Brought by SOCAN,

the Canadian copyright collective for the public performance of musical works administer the performing rights of our members (composers, lyricists, songwriters and their publishers) and those of affiliated international societies by licensing the use of their music in Canada.

Their postion makes sense. A very efficient broadbased system of compensation for copyright holders would solve the problem of how we treat authors fairly while at the same time avoiding an administrative nightmare along the lines of the never-successful micro-payment for actual use. I don't watch Vision TV yet I pay for it in my cable TV bill. Absolutely no difference, except I will want to use the license to the copyright provided by the SOCAN plan.

The opposition to the idea mainly comes from those who will flow the fees through - the ISPs who make money from the increased use of their services to access copyrighted material.