Napster was here

[AmadMozart]

http://www.napster.com/ well...the final death throes are nearing their end as the bankruptcy court denied Napster's acquisition by Bertelsmann. have we learned anything at all? "Corporate rock still sucks. What are you gonna do about it?" Well...what most iconoclasts do...challenge the system...come up with a different system that challenges the conventional wisdom of the existing system. The RIAA was never concerned about Napster because of pirating. That idea has been debunked by many noted economists and holds little or no water. It is about a system that threatened to present a vehicle that could disintermediate the recording industry - - in plain English - Napster, or the technology of Napster and the Internet had the potential to eliminate the middle man, and the RIAA is very much interested in keeping the middle man around because he makes the most of the money from those $18.99 CDs at Borders. Everyone has moved on to other file sharing services anyway - and none of them have the critical mass or present the threat that Napster did to change the industry. However, when one of them does it will be attacked and destroyed as well. Since the days of radio payola scams at the beginning of the popular recorded music era, corporations have and continue to take most of what is good about this thing we call music and make it about profit maximization for themselves. "Corporate greed still sucks in the recording industry. What are you gonna do about it?" Mark

[Anderton]

...and Shawn Fanning was just a fan who loved music. Instead of getting him as an ally who could spread this spirit to others, the music industry opted for fear of the unknown. They blew it. Napster galvanized people about music more than anything else in recent years. But don't give up. There are interesting things being designed for music distribution, far away from the music industry...I wish I could talk about it, and I will when the NDA is lifted.

[AmadMozart]

[quote]Originally posted by Anderton: [b]...and Shawn Fanning was just a fan who loved music. Instead of getting him as an ally who could spread this spirit to others, the music industry opted for fear of the unknown. They blew it. Napster galvanized people about music more than anything else in recent years. But don't give up. There are interesting things being designed for music distribution, far away from the music industry...I wish I could talk about it, and I will when the NDA is lifted.[/b][/quote]I will be very interested in hearing whatever you can tell us all about new distribution channels. I am never going to give up on the idea that art belongs to the people and not the corporations. "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence." Albert Einstein Cheers, Mark

[thisDude]

I'm blown away by the amount of talent out there that's [b]NOT[/b] on a major label. I just found out about [url=http://www.garageband.com]garageband.com[/url] . Some of those bands are great. Could smaller labels like this be the future of distibution?

[Bunny Knutson]

[quote]Originally posted by Anderton: [b] But don't give up. There are interesting things being designed for music distribution, far away from the music industry...I wish I could talk about it, and I will when the NDA is lifted.[/b][/quote]Oh, man, Craig! Please tell us about this as SOON as you are allowed (aloud!). That sounds VERY exciting. Hey, I have an indie label here in SF; if there's any way we can help or get involved, let me know. It's time for REVOLUTION within the music industry!!! -Bunny

[Groovepusher Sly]

The only thing that's keeping the internet revolution from happening for the large and small (independent) companies out there is a [b]painless[/b] way of paying for content. When that happens is when the real fun starts. Sly :cool:

[Roto]

A porn company has made an offer to [url=http://news.com.com/2100-1023-957784.html?tag=fd_top]buy Napster[/url] In a statement issued from Barcelona, Private Media said that it had offered to acquire the Napster trademark and Napster.com Internet address for 1 million shares of Private Media common stock, valued at about $2.4 million.

[RABid]

[quote]Originally posted by Groovepusher Sly: [b]The only thing that's keeping the internet revolution from happening for the large and small (independent) companies out there is a [b]painless[/b] way of paying for content. When that happens is when the real fun starts. Sly :cool: [/b][/quote]And in a way that I can keep the music when my computer is outdated or my player dies. The two biggest deterants to me buying music downloads is quality and restrictions on where that music will play. On the other hand, I have received too many calls from people in the past month who's kids have screwed up their computers by installing Kaza. Robert