Why Make a Sequel of the Napster Wars?

6 writes "Cory Doctorow has an interesting article over at Information Week about Hollywood's strategy of suing sites such as YouTube. Says Doctorow: 'It's been eight years since Sean Fanning created Napster in his college dorm room. Eight years later, there isn't a single authorized music service that can compete with the original Napster. Record sales are down every year, and digital music sales aren't filling in the crater. The record industry has contracted to four companies, and it may soon be three if EMI can get regulatory permission to put itself on the block. The sue-'em-all-and-let-God-sort-'em-out plan was a flop in the box office, a flop in home video, and a flop overseas. So why is Hollywood shooting a remake?'"

Comments

Re:Napster, WTF? Hotline Servers

[smclean]

The original internet scene?

I'd actually began to mention BBSs and then erased it, because I figured if I start down that road, people are going to say, "Actually, it started with people copying each others punch cards."

No one can compete with FREE??

[Mononoke]

Eight years later, there isn't a single authorized music service that can compete with the original Napster.

Wow, you're right! Not a single legitimate online music retailer can compete with a company that paid $0 for the products it distributed. That's amazing!

You should teach an economics course or something!

Na[ster 2: Electric Boogaloo

[proverbialcow]

Because, as this summer has proven amply, the movie industry has temporarily run out of ideas and is only capable of producing sequels. Spider-man 3, Shrek 3, Pirates 3, Die Hard 4, Napster 2...

you insensitive clod

[circletimessquare]

i specifically remember trading brass gear assemblies that made pipe organs play the 1812 overture with others in the underground pirate charles babbage adding machine scene

you young whipper snappers and your pirate ragtime player piano paper scroll scene, you have it so easy today... YOU try hauling around 50 pounds of brass machinery under YOUR overcoat!

Re:you insensitive clod

[shawb]

You ratscallion punks with your fancy mechanical mu-ziq. Back in my day, we had to trade entire orchestras to share our music. Ponder hiding THAT from the local constibulary!

Re:Well

[Wog]

But at least we can paint with all the colors of the wind.

And in other news

[therufus]

Due to the leak of the upcoming new Metallica album on illegal peer to peer file sharing networks, millions of music lovers are currently suing Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich over wasted bandwidth costs. According to reports, the new album is so bad, people have been downloading and deleting the album at a speedy pace.

"I just thought it would be like their older stuff, given that they copped so much crap over 'St Anger'" said one internet user. "Turns out they suck even harder than before. Maybe they should all go back to rehab for good".

Lars Ulrich has responded in an internet blog written for him by his marketing team. "Lars, the two guitarists and that bass player dude would like to apologize for any inconvenience caused by downloading the new album illegally. We are trying to trace you IP addresses so we can sue you, so please download it a few more times each".

Torrent sites have since removed the links to the new album from complaints they have gotten from the internet masses.