(Note: This is a revised, and shortened, version of a piece I originally posted here. A response from a trusted colleague who was in court prompts me to rethink a few things. I’ll be updating in this space.)
Napster looks like it’s cooked. A federal judge ordered it to stop letting users trade copyrighted material.
No, I am not in favor of wholesale piracy. Yes, I am in favor of rewarding artists for their art. I want to pay for the copyrighted music I enjoy.
I hold no particular brief for Napster, the company. It has been quick to assert remarkably heavy-handed protection of its own intellectual property, as the Wall Street Journal noted today.
UPDATE: Was the Journal wrong? Dave Winer says it was (details in the middle of his posting).
But my contempt for the entertainment companies just grows and grows. They don’t want to face reality.
They will face it someday. The rules of doing business have changed.
Napster and its clones — including Gnutella and FreeNet, which will defy attempts at control due to their entirely decentralized nature — have overturned some fundamentals, just as the invention of internal combustion ruined the business model for the horse and buggy. Shut down Napster and a hundred other Napster-like apps will surface. That’s life, folks. Get on with it.
The music industry loathes us. Let’s loathe it back.