Re: a Napster future?

[Hal <pearrow@nvbell.net>]

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Aaron,

As I read it, you carefully limited yourself to the "legal" aspects but
there are also presently challenges to the legal structure of doing
business-as-usual.  Some may see this in only legalistic terms, but it
can also be seen as a revolution in changing structures that have made
the "rich get richer and the poor get poorer."

Nowhere is this so noticeable than in the music industries where
literally millions are made for a few people in a day.  Now they are
screaming, calling for new laws, since that monopoly on entertainment is
being broken.  Also it is happening in the publishing industry.  As hard
as the big houses are fighting, it is impossible to plug up all the
holes.

I say that even considering I make my money writing and wish the
copyright law was written on the 11th Tablet of Moses.  In talking to
other selling writers, I tell them to give up their love of what was
before because the future has overtaken us.  It's up to us to carve out
a new economic niche in that future.

The newspapers -- which I've also worked for -- are suffering mightily
since you can get up-to-the-minute news -- on ANYTHING -- right off the
web.  You would be absolutely surprised at how much software -- much of
it freeware -- that can be gained from the net, some of which competes
quite nicely with high-priced named software.  You can get RealPlayer
Basic for free and it will play hundreds of radio stations around the
country and even the world.  The phone companies are going nuts now that
the software exists to PC telephone anywhere in the world for free.

They, including your speculation-driven companies in all fields, will
fight hard for their comfortable bucks and will probably pressure the
government to crack down on internet possibilities.  But the cat is
already out of the bag -- much of the stuff already either comes from or
is bounced off out-of-U.S. and out-of-Western-economic control.

A new economy is already forming and is forcing the old economy to
adjust.  It behooves all of us to see that continues.

Hal



Aaron Kreider wrote:
> [: hacktivism :]
> http://www.zdnet.com/ecommerce/stories/main/0,10475,2562799-2,00.html
> What do people think about the argument that Napster-like efforts, will
> challenge the corporate media monopolies (internet and others)?
> We could have services that are run by decentralized networks (distributed
> processing) of people who choose to connect to each other.



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