The Electronic Frontier Foundation and other downloader advocacy groups have suggested forms of compulsory licensing as one possible solution to the legal conflicts surrounding file sharing. In a typical scenario, those who hold the copyrights for the music traded between network users would be legally barred from suing the infringers. In return, the government would extract payments from listeners, perhaps electronic pay-per-song fees or perhaps sales taxes on peer-to-peer file-sharing software, blank storage media, or even Internet access itself. Assisted by some form of P2P "charts," music industry groups would theoretically distribute these royalties to the rights holders.

Wow. I had no idea this concept had a real name, or that it was actually already practiced in some form.

compulsory mechanical licenses = the perfect solution to the "problem" of file-sharing

Think about it. No more tedious DRM, no more bulky, expensive copy protection - not to mention this would pave the way for compulsory licenses for other digital media (movies, games). Everyone wins - literally. Consumers get the digital versatility and content they demand, companies/copyright holders get paid, and we as a society revise the ridiculous concept of "ownership" (especially intellectual property ownership) that has simply become obsolete in this day and age.