Seems as though the music industry has finally realized that the internet exists. With UK ISPs now facing government pressure to shop clients who willingly indulge in illegal P2P activities, one of the major labels, Warner Music is currently holding talks with the big players in the Broadband league over the provision of legal music downloads available on a subscription basis.

A piece in yesterday’s Times reveals that Warner Music frontman and chief executive, Edgar Bronfman, gave the go-ahead to a scheme which would see American broadband customers paying an additional fee on top of their usual package – e.g. $5 a month – for access to the Warner catalogue, including artists such as Led Zeppelin, Madonna, R.E.M. and, somewhat ironically, Metallica.

Along with IPTV, inclusive music downloads could soon become the next value-added lock in for broadband customers. Companies such as Virgin Media and O2 are synonymous with music here in the UK, owing to sponsorship of festivals and venues, and many of these companies already have existing deals with content providers for their TV platforms.

Any music files are almost certainly going to come shrink wrapped in shiny happy DRM, and probs wont work on certain world-famous portable music playing devices. Whilst this is certainly a step in the right direction, its doubtful that punters will warm to the idea of paying for something which they might not be able to use 100% of the time. It’s not like up and coming bands make money from CD sales anyway.

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