The End of Free?

A founder of the notorious P2P network the Pirate Bay is creating a micropayment company designed to force users to pay a small monthly subscription to companies that host downloads. “Called Flattr, the micropayments system revolves around members paying a fixed monthly fee. At the end of each month that cash will be divided among participating sites a Flattr member wants to reward. Members might want to reward a band that made a track they liked, the author of a story they enjoyed or a site that gave useful advice.

Participating sites will sport a Flattr button in the same way that many have clickable icons that let visitors send information to friends or refer something they find interesting to sites such as Digg and Redditt. ‘The money you pay each month will be spread evenly among the buttons you click in a month,’ said Mr Sunde. ‘We want to encourage people to share money as well as content,’ Mr Sunde told the BBC. ‘It’s a test to see if this might be a working method for real micropayments.'”