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Six Feet Under: Napster As We Knew It by Bob Lefsetz Let it hereby be known that early in the morning of Thursday, June 28, 2001, the file-swapping service known as Napster died. Unlike so many dot-com companies of the era, Napster did not die of natural causes. The company provided a service people WANTED. That they were willing to PAY for. Traffic was higher than almost any other Web site extant, but it was all for naught. For Napster's owners pulled the plug. Napster was founded in 1999. Unlike the revolutionary products of the '60s, there was a profit motive underlying the enterprise. Although music was provided to the public for free, the goal of the original backer, Shawn Fanning's uncle, was to turn it into a profit-making enterprise. Napster was a simple answer to a simple question. How does one find and trade MP3 files online? Prior to its creation, MP3s were hard to locate. But Napster consolidated all the files in one place. And facilitated the trading thereof. Napster heralded a new kind of computing. Instead of a bank of central servers, delivering product to the teeming masses, with Napster EVERY linked computer was a server. No central storage medium was needed. Those familiar with supercomputers understood the underlying concept. A supercomputer containing the most powerful chip available was no match for another that employed banks of the simple microchips used in personal computers. If one split up the task into tiny little bites, less computing power was needed. Trading files from individual PCs with Napster avoided a central bottleneck of online distribution. BANDWIDTH! Like Benjamin Franklin flying a kite to prove the existence of electricity, Shawn Fanning came up with a simple solution to a seemingly insurmountable problem. However, Napster was predicated on stealing the property of others. The rights holders of the music traded. The record labels. The music publishers. Unfortunately, the businesspeople controlling Napster weren't as savvy as Shawn Fanning. A crucial error was made. Instead of selling their concept to the rights holders, convincing them how great it was, they decided to deny that these rights even existed. Any lawyer who'd paid attention in law school. Who wasn't burdened by the detritus one picks up practicing law. Could have easily informed Napster of the true state of the rights situation. But men with big d*cks decided to have a showdown with the rights holders. As if by sheer will the rights holders' claims could be denied. As if enough money thrown at the problem could undermine centuries of property law. Now if Napster had been a true revolution, instead of a for-profit venture, things might have worked out differently. For there would be the question of whom to sue! But by consolidating and taking a stand against the rights holders, Napster was ripe for the taking. One can defeat the powers that be who are on the wrong side of the fence, but one must employ the tactics of the North Vietnamese. One must BELIEVE in the fight. One must NEVER give up. And one must fight GUERILLA style. All of these are anathema to venture capitalists. They just want to get their money out. Which makes them not that much different from a government trying to save face. Like athletes too dumb to understand it's not about what goes on in the fifth inning or the second quarter, Napster didn't realize that it's about winning in the END! Sure, Napster stayed alive for almost two years. But no money was made, money was only expended. As stated earlier, it bet on the wrong horse, pissed off the rights holders, and the result was/is Napster is history. |
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