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Technology Stocks : MUSIC STOCKS: HIGH-TECH AND INTERNET- Winners and losers. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Silver_Bullet who wrote (136)	8/6/2000 10:44:37 AM
From: Rande Is	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 179

FT, while from a logical perspective you may be right. . . "don't fight 'em. . just buy 'em out". . . the problem is that it sets a precedent. Major record companies buy Napster. . . then Gnutella or Scour Exchange or one of the other dozens of home-based companies will suddenly organize and incorporate and want tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to be bought out. So while it seems that in buying a company such as Napster, one would be receiving an awesome revenue stream. . . [and they may - that's not my point] . . . in fact, it would be seen as a buyout for the sake of controlling the technology. . .and such a move would open the floodgates to every Tom, Dick or Horatio that wants to hold the most popular music "hostage". I still believe the answer is to "use the law". It has worked well so far. And though it will be less useful moving past Napster into the smaller networks of home databases, it is the only effective weapon left. I would like to see 1 dozen arrests in a half-dozen countries for copyright violations and unlicensed publishing. . . .I think that would place FEAR back into the hearts of would-be partakers. To better answer your question, there are many services that have been gearing up to charge a buck or so for direct-delivery of music via high-bandwidth connections. . .but they are still waiting for the high-bandwidth rollout before unveiling their services. . . within a few years you'll have a choice between companies such as "Liberty Digital", who also produces "The Box" on TV, which our kids like BETTER than MTV. . . . Liquid Audio already has CD quality downloads of top name artists. Once broadband hits, downloading music via a dial-up modem will seem rather silly and a waste of your time. . . in other words. . . which would you rather do. . . download a few hours worth of poor quality recordings or listen to CD quality music of your choice during the same time period, for just a few dollars? Thanks for the question! Few find this thread, which is a sort of chronology of music on the internet. Best wishes, Rande Is