Date: Tuesday, June 26, 2001 7:48 PM
From: Clay ([email protected])
To: [email protected]
__Subject: Napster Finds Old Space Crowded __
No matter how many blazing hoops Napster jumps through -- motivated only by the cracking whips of the Recording Industry's lawyers, I might add -- and no matter how much money conglomerates like Bertelsmann AG pitch into the fire, Napster will die ("Napster Finds Old Space Crowded," June 26, 2001). Perhaps not immediately. It may whimper into 2003, but it's not likely. The beauty of Napster was that the music was free. It's that simple. It may hurt artists' feelings and producers' pocketbooks, but that's the plain truth.
With the advent of ever-increasing numbers of freeware which allow the same easy and free downloads that Napster pioneered, why pay? Who will pay to advertise a site that duplicates services already provided by most of the large music clearinghouses? Not me, and not anyone I know. Napster does not have "brand loyalty". Its essence was piracy. So consider the H.M.S Napster looted, stripped, and scuttled, and the buccaneers bound for other easy prey.
