This week's latest installment in an on-going controversy of just what should be free on the World Wide Web and what consumers should be made to pay for illustrates how the Internet is shifting power away from recording industry titans to entrepreneurs and consumers. If the ruling against Napster holds, the record labels lose a vital, potential partner and chase online music fans deeper into the less centralized, less traceable software category. The industry has shot itself in the foot and the marathon is just beginning. The court battle between the record labels and Napster is just one of the flashpoints the Internet creates as it transforms the way companies do business and consumers make purchases. It's cheaper and easier than sending fliers and you can reach people across the country.
People can go to our web site, download a song or two and, if they like it, they can buy the record.
Napster and other Napsterlike sites allow people to have music as a throw-away convenience. Napster is fast food, but a CD collection is a feast. Experts say the Naspter case is only the first of many. Any comments about the impact of the ruling on Scour would be premature and hasty. The industry is trying to send a message with this case.