Word: evening
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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Since the lawsuit began, Napster has become enveloped in something of a siege mentality, an us-vs.-them attitude toward the record labels and the press that has forced Fanning to retreat even farther into his shell. He has to monitor carefully what he says to whom and even what clothes he wears. "The cdc [the Cult of the Dead Cow, a hacker collective] guys sent me a shirt, and the lawyers told me I shouldn't wear it," he says. "It's just so tightly controlled...
Duplicating patterns may not seem like a terrible crime. Your mom may even have copied one or two in her time rather than pay a few dollars each to buy them from companies like Pegasus. But pattern pirates are on the loose on the Internet, and the middle-age crafts crowd has begun to demonstrate the same deeply held sense of entitlement felt by 17-year-old Limp Bizkit fans downloading free MP3 tunes. When Hedgepath challenged the piracy of one outfit, brazenly named PatternPiggies, the online postings in response were downright defiant. Shouted one user: "Ladies, this...
Make no mistake: the implications of the peer-to-peer file-sharing movement that Napster pioneered go way beyond pop music. There are already Napster-like services for videos and full-length feature films. Books, blueprints, vintage comics and stock photos may be next in line. Even newspapers and magazines are worried. (Hey, you did pay for this article, didn't you?) The fact is--as the stitching-pattern makers learned the hard way--there's no corner of the so-called content industry, no bit of intellectual property, no idea, that isn't in danger of being Napsterized...
Perhaps. But peer-to-peer file sharing, it's now clear, is here to stay. Even if Napster is driven out of business, there are new, even more intractable sharing systems--notably Gnutella and Freenet--that allow files to be traded directly from PC to PC, without going through a single website like Napster's. These renegade services would be harder to shut down because they have no centralized plugs to pull, no company officers to sue. Former Public Enemy rapper Chuck D got it right: trying to stop file sharing over the Internet, he says, "is like trying...
Ultimately, the best defense against Napster may be a good offense. If the recording industry can offer audiophiles a better product or a more satisfactory experience, either online or in music stores, its companies may be able to compete--and even prosper--in a market in which the same music is available free...