I don't think that a future of napster will be the end of bad, overproduced music. There will allways be postpubescent teens. (Apologies to any postpubescent teens who happen to be reading this) What it may mean is the eventual dissapearance of iconic rock stars like Metallica. A real threat to everyone, not just the RIAA, is that some really good (unknown) musicians may choose not to pursue a career in music because there isn't enough financial incentive to live like a pauper for a few years while you are waiting to get heard. That's a bit extreme, and one would hope that the music industry will be robust enough to avoid it. I blow a bunch of money on cd's I like a year, but I also have a lot of mp3's I've never paid for, due to my own financial constraints and immorality. As my situation improves financially, I attempt to rectify these things. One would hope that this is the norm, as people make the progression from dirt-poor college pirates to proffesionals, but who can say what the next 10 years are going to bring. Change, certainly, but will it ultimately be to anyones benefit?
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I don't think that a future of napster will be the end of bad, overproduced music. There will allways be postpubescent teens. (Apologies to any postpubescent teens who happen to be reading this) What it may mean is the eventual dissapearance of iconic rock stars like Metallica. A real threat to everyone, not just the RIAA, is that some really good (unknown) musicians may choose not to pursue a career in music because there isn't enough financial incentive to live like a pauper for a few years while you are waiting to get heard. That's a bit extreme, and one would hope that the music industry will be robust enough to avoid it. I blow a bunch of money on cd's I like a year, but I also have a lot of mp3's I've never paid for, due to my own financial constraints and immorality. As my situation improves financially, I attempt to rectify these things. One would hope that this is the norm, as people make the progression from dirt-poor college pirates to proffesionals, but who can say what the next 10 years are going to bring. Change, certainly, but will it ultimately be to anyones benefit?