Norwegian Minister of Education Bård Vegar Solhjell supported an entirely new business model that supports artists and content producers through advertising.
Solhjell's statements come in tandem with the ongoing meltdown of the prosecution of the four men behind The Pirate Bay. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry is prosecuting the case while also pressuring Solhjell to block Internet access to The Pirate Bay in Norway. The trial is taking place in nearby Stockholm, Sweden.
But in defense of file-sharing — a practice that many would just call pirating — Solhjell said that the advent of the Internet does not sound the deathknell for content producers.
"All previous technology advances have led to fears that the older format to die," he said. "But TV did not kill radio, the Web did not kill the book, and the download is not going to kill music."
Solhjell suggested that entertainment companies shift to an ad-supported model right away instead of wasting their money pursuing legal action against file-sharers. Instead, he suggested using that money to support artists.
"This means that less resources is used for printing, transport and music shops," he said.
Solhjell's thoughts about an ad-supported model may be on target, if the success of Hulu.com is taken into consideration. The mainstream video-sharing site has found great success by licensing high-quality content and peppering it with a reasonable amount of advertising. Despite getting a fraction of the kind of traffic that YouTube gets, Hulu is already making more money.