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Some of North America's leading experts in peer-to-peer file sharing on the Internet are convinced that sooner rather than later – maybe within a couple of years – we won't be downloading music, movies and TV shows for free.In fact, the consensus at Thursday's key panel discussion – The Evolution of Peer-to-Peer Music: From Enemy to Business Partner – in a day-long round of seminars during Canadian Music Week was not dissimilar to a controversial idea advanced just last month by the Songwriters Association of Canada (SAC).SAC has proposed making it legal to share music on peer-to-peer networks in exchange for a monthly fee of $5 going to royalties for music's creators. But David Hughes, senior vice-president of the technology division of the Record Industry Association of America, suggests that business may find its own solution, with internet service providers charging some users an extra fee for their downloading habits. Downloading eats up precious bandwidth and slows down the network. Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne, the California-based media measurement company that monitors digital music activity on the Internet, added: "Maybe the ISPs will have to find the bandwidth hogs and charge them extra; making it more difficult and expensive for ordinary subscribers to acquire bandwidth isn't a good strategy.
with internet service providers charging some users an extra fee for their downloading habits. Downloading eats up precious bandwidth and slows down the network
"Maybe the ISPs will have to find the bandwidth hogs and charge them extra"