With P2P file-swapping still proceeding almost unchecked and CD sales swirling down the toilet, music labels have shown an increased willingness to consider new business models over the last couple of years, even going so far as to drop their once-ubiquitous DRM. One intriguing idea that has been bandied about is levies: pay your ISP, say, five bucks a month,and you can legally listen to all the music you can find. Though such an arrangement raises plenty of questions (should the levy be compulsory, or can people opt out of it?), stakeholders across North America are at least open to the idea.

Two pieces out this week illustrate that fact quite nicely. Wired has a piece up today on Jim Griffin, a proponent of the $5 ISP model, who will appear on a panel tomorrow at SXSW in Austin to continue flogging his idea in public. P2P would suddenly become legal (for those who paid, anyway), with the cash doled out to labels and artists based on the number of times each artists' work was traded each month. Such a system sounds wide open to gaming, of course, but if that problem could be solved, the music industry at least has a good chance at converting millions of file-swappers into paying customers.

Canadian law professor Michael Geist, who has covered such issues for years, notes that other levy plans are also gaining traction in Canada. We've already covered the proposal from the Songwriters Association of Canada that would also bring a $5 fee to Internet connections in return for the right to use P2P services to get music. Download services like iTunes could still charge whatever they like.

Barenaked Ladies frontman Steven Page told Ars last year that he supported such a plan. "Not everyone's an artist," Page said, "but people can now express themselves like artists do, by sharing something that means something to them. If we had a system of compulsory licenses, they don't have to worry about going and getting a license to do it, or circumventing the system."

Nokia has launched its own Comes With Music initiative, where selected products will feature unlimited access to the Universal music catalog (though for a limited amount of time), with the cost of the service built into the price of the device. France's Vivendi has also launched ZaOza, a service that provides unlimited downloads of music, video clips, and games for a $7 monthly fee.

Subscription services like Napster and Rhapsody continue to offer all-you-can music plans, though the tracks from each service come with DRM and haven't worked with the iPod.

Not everyone likes the compulsory license model (the head of the US Copyright Office told Ars last year, "I hope we don't go to a system of compulsory licenses. I don't see how any creator benefits from a compulsory license.") but the music business does appear increasingly open to offering all-you-can-eat music, as opposed to its decades-long practice of attempting to move individual albums.

That access could turn out to be free, as well, at least for users who don't need to carry music with them. Last.fm and iMeem are currently offered ad-supported streaming of music, while P2P service Qtrax claims to have a legal, ad-supported P2P service in the works (once it can get its licenses in place).

For those who want to pay a couple bucks a month in return for owning unrestricted copies of their music, well, that day may come, but it won't come without contention. When Ars Editor in Chief Ken Fisher moderated a panel at this year's CES, several of the panelists agreed that compulsory music licensing might happen... but they couldn't agree how to split up the revenue pie. In a compulsory licensing arrangement, that decision is removed from market control and becomes a political issue, so expect to see even more lobbying in DC should such solutions come to pass.

And of course, if $5 on your ISP bill gets you access to music, can the day be far off when another fee appears for movies? For e-books? For cross-stitch patterns? So long as these plans are voluntary for consumers, they could be a great option for many people. If they become mandatory, though, we could easily see a race for the trough as content owners scramble to grab a government-backed revenue stream.