Free-music havens MP3.com and Napster are now working up paid subscriber formulas. The digital music revolution has gone from a roaring crescendo to an aural fade-out. War's over, man. Wormer dropped the big one.
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By
-- Bob Dylan
The musical revolution was just beginning to take shape. Copyright cowboys had smashed the barn gate wide open and the music, man, it was everywhere. Information freedom fighters were sharing intellectual property off hard-drive partitions. Suits were readying the legalese lasso. This was supposed to be defiance's finest hour.
You won't believe what happened next, daddy-o. Lines were drawn in the sand. The waves washed them out. Parties that were locked in battle were suddenly locked in a handshake. In a "times they are a-changing" jingle-jangle morning, the melody pirates at Napster and MP3.com (Nasdaq: MPPP) began to strike licensing deals with the five major labels. Napster landed BMG. MP3.com landed all five -- the last coming on Tuesday when the popular music site and Universal made nice on a $53.4 million settlement and licensing deal.
Breaking bread with the enemy? That could be a groovy, peace, love, and happiness scene. But now both Napster and MP3.com are saying that they will be incorporating paid subscriber plans into their models to help subsidize consumer access. They pulled up a tree and put in a parking lot, dude! Can you believe it? In a nutshell, you can still wave your "information wants to be free" banner -- you just have to pay for the right to do so.
Granted, music listeners can just dump the Ice-T in the Boston "More than a Feeling" Harbor. The underground offers sanctuary and alternatives. But if a site like media-rich Scour -- or even one of the harder-to-bring-down decentralized sharing sites like Gnutella or Freeserve -- gets too big, that's it. It's in the crosshairs.
"There must be some way out of here, said the joker to the thief."
-- Bob Dylan
With businessmen ordering up a nice bottle of Chianti from the revolutionary vineyards, the suddenly alienated freebie fanatics are down to asking themselves the hard, obvious questions.
How does it feel?
How does it feel to be without a home?
Like a complete unknown?
Like a rolling stone?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind.
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