This Major-newsmagazine author of the below article seems to think it's OK to Pirate Copyrighted Music Material, and to actually take an active part in it. Since this author seems so eager to enjoy the fruits of other people's labor for free, I therefore urge those who simply feel like it to seek out all of this same author's copyrighted material, post it everywhere on the Web, and give him no credit, link, or financial gain whatsoever.
I'll start the proceedings by posting his entire article in question with no regard for even providing a link to the article (so he cannot reap the financial benfits of a "hit" on his website).
This author obviously thinks that Copyrighted Music produces and records itself, is not expensive to produce, or does not entail any finanical risk, time, or effort by Major Recording Labels whatsoever.
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Bye-Bye, Music Business
Combine one storage device and one nifty piece of freeware, and what do you get? Free music--and the end of the recording industry as we know it.
I'm feeling grumpy. So even though I was going to try to be polite about the subject of this column, screw it: The music business as we know it today is hosed. I'm a funny guy to be saying this, given that I've invested a few million dollars of my firm's capital in fledgling companies in the music industry. But that's being a venture capitalist: We see opportunity when the status quo is challenged. If I were a music-biz exec, on the other hand, I'd be singing the blues. (And sending VCs my resume.)
Since December, I've led three investments in this space. But only last weekend did I realize just what an earthquake has struck. That's when I did two things: First, I bought a mind-blowing product called the Compressor Personal Jukebox.
Second, I started to look at investing in yet another music-related company, Napster. Put these two together, and you can see just how close the music business is to a total revolution.
I bought the Compressor Personal Jukebox from a mail-order catalog. I recently paid Hammacher Schlemmer $750 (toys are deductible in my business!) for this groundbreaking product, made by a Korean firm called Hytek Manufacturing. It seems very basic: a 4.6-gigabyte hard disk in a small portable box, with USB port and headphone jack. Run a cable from your PC into the USB port, pop an audio CD into your PC's CD-ROM drive, and the Compressor's software copies the music onto its hard drive. You can store up to 80 hours of music. That's around 100 CDs, which is about all the CDs that my wife, Charlotte, and I own.
The Compressor's rechargeable battery lasts for ten hours, and its software is far easier to use than the software Sony supplies with its product, the Music Clip.
Let me be clear: You can copy an entire CD collection onto a single device that fits in a jacket pocket and weighs less than a pound, so you can wander around all day with headphones listening to that collection. Two companies make these devices (check out www.musiccompressor.com and www.pjbox.com), and both got the basic design from Compaq! Yet neither Compaq nor any of the major consumer-electronics companies has introduced a product based on this design; instead, only these no-name Korean firms have delivered. (Combine this with the inconvenience of
Sony's Music Clip and Music Stick Walkman, and it's clear the leading consumer-products companies still don't understand how the industry is changing.) Shortly after I found the Jukebox, I was introduced to Napster as a possible company for my firm to invest in (other VCs are also looking at it). Here's my basic take: Now you don't ever need to buy another CD. Just collect music free with Napster, copy it onto the Personal Jukebox, and listen to any music you want whenever and wherever you want. And for now, all that's free.
Napster lets you find and copy to your hard disk virtually any song, copyrighted or not. When you register at www.napster.com, you download a program that finds the music on your hard disk and publishes information about that music in a directory on the Napster Website. It does that for every Napster user; there are now millions. When you start Napster up, it tells you what music is available from other people connected live to the Net at that time, and lets you go get the stuff you want from their hard drives. Some people worry that this might create a security problem. I'm not that concerned--over the past two weeks, I've downloaded more than 100 songs from artists like the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Santana--even Richard Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries." It helps that I have a DSL line into my house, so song files of three to five megabytes download in a few minutes. Copying songs over a modem would get tedious. IT people at major universities are trying to filter Napster out, because students copying files from one hard disk to another are bringing the campus networks to their knees.
Now, I'm an old guy--all of 48--but it was easy for me to figure out how to get songs from Napster into my Personal Jukebox. And that's when it became clear that the future of music has changed forever. Napster turns what was once a relatively expensive product into a completely free service. That may not last--the Recording Industry Association of America has already sued Napster. But Pandora's box is open.
I may still buy regular old audio CDs, especially cool compilations. I may still go to concerts and events. My kids may still buy merchandise by their favorite artists. But even if I have to pay for a service like Napster's, I know that this, combined with devices like the Personal Jukebox, is the future of music. In fact, any fool who looks at the facts can tell that this business will be completely restructured over the next few years. Maybe that's why I'm grumpy, because I feel like a fool for taking so long to get that.
Editor's note: In this column, Stewart Alsop, our trusted columnist/venture capitalist, looks at how the music business may change utterly. Part of the story is about Napster, a controversial music business startup. Readers should be aware that, as Alsop makes perfectly clear in the column, his venture firm, New Enterprise Associates, is one of several firms considering an investment in Napster. For FORTUNE's take on Napster, please check out Amy Kover's feature story in this issue.
Stewart Alsop is a partner with New Enterprise Associates, a venture capital firm. Except as noted, neither he nor his partnership has a financial interest in the companies mentioned.Write to him at alsop_infotech@fortunemail.com.
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There is a time and place for public shame. When major-newsmagazine columnists start advocating and participating actively the Piracy of Copyrighted Material I can see that hypocritcal and cynical (jealous too?) elements of our society are gaining the upper hand.
I sincerely hope the author of the above article writes his Great American Novel soon, only to have it ripped off his publisher's server before it is even distributed, and then posted up on thousands of websites -everywhere. For Free.
I really do. |
