Possibly it's the latent anarchist streak in me, but I tend to rejoice at the potential for entrenched, corporate models which rule and dominate creative industries being fundamentally challenged from time to time. Reminds me of the movie industry crying and pleading to the heavens and anyone else who would listen that VCR's (as opposed to VCP's-which just play tapes) would mean the certain death of the industry and that they absolutely, positively had to be banned if anyone ever wanted to watch a new movie again. They were serious, too. Models change. I have no doubt that the creative spirit and music will survive. The corporate model which feeds off of this creative spirit, however, is now confronted with a new paying field. It too, will survive, but it will look different. I am confident that Napster will be effectively crushed, at least in the short term. The laws (and those who enforce them) are created by vested interests to protect those interests, and new technologies are usually effectively stifled by an essentially conservative market and those who they threaten. (For example, cable was stifled by the broadcast industry for more than a decade with end-of-the-world style cries of hellfire and brimstone, just as cable is now stifling satellite broadcasting, deliciously, using precisely the same arguments which broadcast had turned against it. The same thing is going on with internet telephony, which scares the pants off of the telcom industry, and directly dovetails with the alleged digital conversion and the potential for multicasting v. the high definition programming which the industry promised Congress). I digress. That said, the genie is out of the bottle - no turning back. Sure, the industry will manage to suppress the development and full potential of all of these new technologies for a while by forcing them to play by outdated rules and cramming them into boxes designed in a different era. It has been ever thus. In the long run, however, were in for some changes. What? No idea. Creativity will survive. Music will survive. The rest (the playing filed, the rules, and even the players, not to mention whose pocket is getting lined) is just a curiosity to the likes of me. Hell, and if the upheaval only means a period of uncertainty, which can only then breed more creativity, I say bring it on. Us listeners / consumers, whatever our stripe, only benefit. Ive never once used Napster, nor do I ever intend to, but I love it. (Sure, mea culpa, I've conveniently glossed the genuinely thorny issue of property rights in the digital domain--which is terrifyingly important on countless level and utterly without any apparent solution--I just don't want the folks at Sony music to have any hand in coming up with the new paradigm, or, for that matter, perpetuating the old one...).
Feelings on Napster?
Hi, Since this is in part a forum about music, I'll put this statement and question on the table. In the past few months, I've begun to use Napster online. I'll look through the forum for reccomendations on good albums and tracks, then I'll download it on Napster, take a listen and, if I like it, purchase the album. My opinion is that Napster is really opening up accessibility to music for alot of people, allowing them to try new things that before they wouldn't have access to or simply wouldn't be prepared to invest in. It's helped expand my own horizons I know and I think it's good for music overall. Any opinions?