Jim Griffin consults for Warner, one of the four major music labels, and he sees a disturbing sight when he looks around at the digital music landscape. Taking music without paying for it may not be "morally voluntary," Griffin says, but he admits it has become "functionally voluntary." No civilized society, he adds, can endure "purely voluntary payment for art, knowledge, and culture." So Griffin's job is to help Warner monetize digital music, and he's convinced that the issue of payment for music is nothing less than "our generation's nuclear power." If our society can monetize music in a balanced, consumer-friendly way, the results will be awesome. If we can't... well, remember Chernobyl?

Speaking today at the Progress & Freedom Foundation's annual Aspen conference, Griffin made an impassioned case for music and the importance of monetizing it. He started from the premise, of course, that those who create art should be able to profit from their creative work. He told the story of a Parisian composer in the 1840s who went to dinner at a Champs Elysee restaurant, heard the orchestra there playing his tune, and left without paying for his supper. When hauled before a magistrate, the composer wondered why he should pay for dinner when the restaurant had paid him nothing for his own work. Out of the incident, the world's first collection society was born.

Collecting societies perform two tasks: collecting a pot of money, then distributing it fairly to artists. In the US, groups like ASCAP collect royalties from (among others) radio stations on behalf of songwriters; this arrangement allows DJs to spin any song they like without negotiating a separate deal with every writer or rightsholder.

The societies also make the process of paying for music more efficient. Rather than forcing every ASCAP royalty payer to track every single song ever played throughout the year, collection societies today generally rely on statistical sampling techniques to split up the money between performers in the same way that US TV networks sell advertising based on a small sample of Nielsen families.

Griffin's most intriguing idea, and one he's been pitching for some time now, is a voluntary, blanket music license; essentially, bringing the collection society model to end users. In this model, consumers would pay royalties into a pot (by paying an extra monthly fee to their ISPs, for instance) and would then have access to all the music from all the labels that participate in the scheme. The new collection society would then distribute the money to artists and labels.

Blanket licensing has been touted by groups like the EFF and bands like the Barenaked Ladies, but it's notable that a label like Warner has tapped Griffin to seriously investigate the idea. While quick to stress that he isn't in favor of a compulsory (i.e., government-mandated) blanket license, Griffin is convinced that a blanket license is the way to make it almost frictionless for consumers to access a huge collection of music. How this would work in practice still remains unclear—would users be allowed to keep the music they download after they stop paying a fee? What about bands and labels that don't sign on? etc.—and some versions of the idea start to sound a lot like existing subscription services.

Griffin wasn't ready to reveal any details of the organization he's putting together, but he did make clear that the entire issue of monetizing music is the "canary in the coal mine." Music has led the way when it comes to content online; print is too difficult to digitize and share in most cases, while movies have until recently been too large to transfer easily. Griffin argues that monetizing music, then, will establish the models for other forms of online content. If the music industry ultimately finds itself incapable of turning tunes into cash online, then Griffin believes there's little hope for other creators.

He wants Warner and the other major labels to do this by making art "feel free" to those who enjoy it, even if it isn't. This fits well with the paradigm articulated later in the morning by technology lawyer Jim Burger, who argued that network filters, three-strikes rules, and legislation won't save the content businesses. The real answer to online piracy problems will be a market answer; if content creators want to succeed online, they need to focus even more on "seducing" consumers than on pistol-whipping them.

"Honey draws more flies than vinegar," Burger said, and it's encouraging to see a major label like Warner at least serious about giving someone like Griffin the time and money to build a beehive.