Perhaps the real reason the corporate monoliths hate distributed file sharing is that is exposes "their" consumers to so much more choice?
Marketing a relatively small and homogenous group of artists makes it much easier to stay in control and maximise margins. Money for nothing, and the chicks for free... Napster and friends, conversely, are introducing Joe Sixpack to more and better music than he had ever imagined existed.
File sharing not only threatens today's sale but it erodes the record companies' control over what the mass market hears and wants. In many ways it obsoletes the mass market altogether and we get to be individuals again.
Radio once posed this exact same threat, but it was brought to heel with intimidation and corruption. Now the same script is being played again...
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Perhaps the real reason the corporate monoliths hate distributed file sharing is that is exposes "their" consumers to so much more choice?
Marketing a relatively small and homogenous group of artists makes it much easier to stay in control and maximise margins. Money for nothing, and the chicks for free... Napster and friends, conversely, are introducing Joe Sixpack to more and better music than he had ever imagined existed.
File sharing not only threatens today's sale but it erodes the record companies' control over what the mass market hears and wants. In many ways it obsoletes the mass market altogether and we get to be individuals again.
Radio once posed this exact same threat, but it was brought to heel with intimidation and corruption. Now the same script is being played again...