The News Business is Saved

Well, the music business first. Over on that noted bastion of socialism and state-backed protectionism the Isle of Man, they’ve decided that having people pay for online content might make for a workable business model:

Under his proposal, the money collected by the Internet providers would be sent to a special agency that would distribute the proceeds to the copyright owners, including the record labels and music publishers. They would receive payments based on how often their music was downloaded or streamed over the Internet, as they now do in many countries when it is performed live or on the radio.

I could swear I read that idea somewhere before.