Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Messiah

Author:stanp@iname.com
Posted:8/3/2000; 7:35:01 AM
Topic:scriptingNews outline for 8/1/2000
Msg #:19420 (In response to 19391)
Prev/Next:19419 / 19421

I wrote an email to the author,Harvey Reid, pointing out the the essay is out of date. This morning I got back an email saying that he had updated the essay at http://www.woodpecker.com/audio/mp3essay.html .

Here is the pertinent paragraph from the essay

WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT?
Supposedly the big record companies are afraid they are going to lose control of their music, and they and many of the artists are worried. There is no question that a lot of people have been getting rich from ownership of music copyright and from selling CD's, and there is no question that the landscape of how this happens is going to change also. DSome of the high-profile artists have been backing MP3, saying that they don't get any money from record sales now, so they don't care if they don't make money in the new system. This is a reflection, no doubt, of some of the bitterness they feel toward their record contracts. We may end up with a world of music sales where the middlemen get removed, and there may be no more radio stations, record stores, or record companies, or record distributers before the digital dust has settled. The latest controversy about Napster (a web service that lets people trade MP3 files with each other through a central server/library) and Gnutella (a similar service where peoiple can trade any kind of computer file with each other, without a central server/library) may even lead to a world where big corporations who are used to making huge $ from ownership, licensing and distributed copyrighted art have to find another way to make money, which they no doubt will. The copyright gold mine has been operating for quite a while, and it has been cleaner, safer money than operating a real gold mine. The fact that millions of college students now feel that recorded music should be free does not bode well for the future of companies that make money from selling music. (Like me!) This is very large stuff that is happening lately, and it's anyone's guess whether the cops or the robbers will win."

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