But because the music has been reconfigured digitally as pure information, it can be shared without any loss to the holder. They build up their network of users by providing a free service. Then, they transform their main asset, their network of millions of users, into paid subscribers or members. That's what the Napster-Bertelsmann deal is all about. Already, EMI Recorded Music, the Universal Music Group, and Sony Music Entertainment have announced similar plans.
Commercial life is non-stop now.
Napster is only the tip of the iceberg. The film industry is locked into a similar court battle with hackers who have created a code that cracks the digital video disk format, allowing anyone who has access to the code to make copies of DVD movies and exchange them free of charge. More than 300,000 movie downloads are taking place each day and observers expect the number of downloads to reach a million or more copies per day by the end of the year. There may be little the film industry can do to stem the tide. In the long run, film companies are likely to follow the lead of the music industry and make their peace with the net by setting up their own sites and providing access to films by turning users into paid subscribers and members.