And if the labels accept Napster's offer, they've got the Net's biggest P2P service in the palm of their hand. Right now Napster may be able to offer better chat rooms and a more reliable service than Gnutella or FreeNet, but hundreds of open-source programmers are ready and eager to take on that challenge, too. But even if Napster survives the lawsuit and succeeds in hammering out some other kind of partnership with the record labels, it's still got a long, difficult road ahead. Janelle Brown is a senior writer for Salon Technology. The courts can shut Napster down, but unless the music industry gives as well as takes, it will never recapture the customers it's alienating.
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