Warner Music Group has outlined a controversial plan to try and regulate the wild chaos that is the music frontier. Veteran music guru Jim Griffin plans to bundle music and offer consumers' complete and unlimited Internet access to music libraries, and the system is simple: a monthly subscription basis.

Presumably, this is a last-ditch attempt at preventing the industry from collapsing completely. Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman hiring of Mr. Griffin, formerly with Geffen, shows the level of industry deperation. The recording industry revenue has shrunk to $10 billion from $15 billion in less than a decade and the decline shows no sign of stopping as more and more musicians are bypassing the big labels. Compact disc sales are falling daily as music downloading becomes the modus operandi.

Griffin, in an interview with Portfolio.com, said, "Today it has become purly voluntary to pay for music." He added that "If I tell you to go listen this band, you could pay, or you might not, it is pretty much up to you. So the music business has become a big tip jar."

Griffin was assigned a three-year contract to create the logistics behind the subscription service, working out the details between the publishers, artists, and the listeners. Griffin referred to the fact that the recording industry had been clinging to the notion of the music being a 'product' like Tarzan hanging on to a vine.

Two other major players in the industry are looking at similar measures. Apple and Sony BMG are also independently looking into the subscription fee-based model.

There have already been critics of this attempt. and I have to agree, Pandora's box has already been opened, and I think it is going to be tough to close it now the lid is well and truly off. Why will people revert to a subscription service when thay have been getting the tunes, files, for free via peer-to-peer sites? Have they not learned anything from Napster?

Griffin suggested a $5 per month fee, but that this was arbitrary to cover the collective licensing concept, which he said had been around for "over a 150 years."

It seems to me the 'collective plan' may need updating for the digital era to adopt it. We live in an web culture now that doesn't expect to pay for anything online. Whether it is information, music, games, video, television, pornography, movies, photography, or illustration. The new price model is free. Now the fat cat publishers have to figure out how to coax their customers back. The first thing I suggest is that they offer something to make the fee worthwhile, something exrtra that you don't get from file sharing, be it $5 or 50 cents.

Watch this space.