It appears that Warner Music Group is thinking of a way to have Internet providers add a $5 extra-fee to subscribers’ bills for unlimited online access to music. If this happens, the result would consist of revenues of approximately $20 billion annually, that would be divided among artists, labels and copyright holders.

”Today, it has become purely voluntary to pay for music," Jim Griffin, music industry veteran and cosultant, told Portfolio.com in an exclusive interview this week. "If I tell you to go listen to this band, you could pay, or you might not. It's pretty much up to you. So the music business has become a big tip jar.”

This new idea is intended to somewhat compensate the major losses music companies have recorded because of illegal music downloads. Record sales everywhere have significantly dropped in the past years, as the Internet has rapidly evolved.

Other important music industry players are working on similar concepts as well. Sony BMG Music Entertainment is allegedly close to signing a contract with MySpace Music that would allow the latter to offer users everywhere online music catalogues, ad-free music and video streaming as well as paid MP3 downloads.

There were also rumors that Apple is on its way to offering Internet users full access to the entire iTunes library in exchange for paying a premium for Apple hardware.