When file sharing first came out in the late nineties with Napster and Kazaa the record companies should have jumped on the bandwagon and sued the internet service providers for allowing such a thing to go on over their networks. Then they should have provided a very low-cost subscription service that allowed people to download any song they want at a fraction of the cost of buying a CD. I think a lot of people would have loved to have gone legal with their purchasing of music but the only option was iTunes which came out much later. A lot of people just want to listen to their music but don't want to download and have a copy on their computer. The biggest draw of the file sharing was the variety and people wanted variety and not to have manufactured pop shoved down their throats. I think companies like Rhapsody somewhat get this fact and will become the wave of the future for music.
Slashdot Mirror
When file sharing first came out in the late nineties with Napster and Kazaa the record companies should have jumped on the bandwagon and sued the internet service providers for allowing such a thing to go on over their networks. Then they should have provided a very low-cost subscription service that allowed people to download any song they want at a fraction of the cost of buying a CD. I think a lot of people would have loved to have gone legal with their purchasing of music but the only option was iTunes which came out much later. A lot of people just want to listen to their music but don't want to download and have a copy on their computer. The biggest draw of the file sharing was the variety and people wanted variety and not to have manufactured pop shoved down their throats. I think companies like Rhapsody somewhat get this fact and will become the wave of the future for music.