PlayLouder, a UK ISP, announced a deal with Sony to allow file sharers to legally share and download Sony files via any P2P software. PlayLouder will pay the record company a licensing fee. Cory Doctorow says this may be the best news in the century. Look closer.

On the surface this looks good. Collective licensing has been proposed for years as a win-win P2P solution. I even proposed such a plan at RazorPop. The foundation of the plan is that P2P users are granted a license to continue file sharing in exchange for compensation (in this case paid by the ISP). I agree that this is a step in the right direction. But it is a bad deal for consumers.

• It's not collective. Consumers don't distinguish or acquire music by label. A plan that only applies to Sony music is like saying the plan is valid for songs beginning with A through F, but not G through Z.
• The license is worthless. Are users going to limit themselves to Sony's music. Of course not, since it's not truly collective. How are users indemnified and protected from lawsuits? Is the license valid if I use a proxy server or other security service like iPhantom?
• Don't forget the surveillance. Outgoing traffic is filtered so that subscribers can't share Sony songs. Given that much P2P traffic is encrypted this is meaningless. But it still is a slippery slope. Do you want your ISP to be snooping on your Internet traffic? Can you trust the government, the entertainment industry, or your ISP? Giving up consumer rights for any technology that controls and limits consumer activity is dangerous, no matter how well intentioned, whether it's copy protected CDs, a broadcast flag, Microsoft HDMI monitors, or filtered traffic.
• What is the fee? PlayLouder insists that there is no additional cost passed on to the user. That may be true as the current value of this plan is negligible. Let's look at the actual cost when there is a real collective licensing offering.

Marc Freedman
RazorPop, developer of TrustyFiles, the leading multiple network P2P file sharing software
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