Napster vs. music industry. And the winner is...
Yesterday, the Financial Times reported that Napster is considering filing for bankruptcy. The Napster company, which service was stopped last year by a Federal court, has also lost its CEO Hilbers because he couldn't attract enough inevstors. The authors of the article call this 'the victory of the recording industry over the once hugely popular online music- swapping service'. They also write: 'The failure of Napster would represent the triumph of Hollywood over Silicon Valley'.
The funny thing is, you could also say that it's the other way around! At its top, there were about 50 million people using the service for exchanging audio files. Napster was so popular, that it had become one of the main drivers for broadband! The music industry was slow in responding to this new development of exchanging music using broadband internet connections. Bertelsmann tried to turn Napsters' succes into their own favour, by changing Napster into a paid service. It is actually since then that Napster has been out of service. And now it seems, it will never return. But this is in my opninion not a victory for the music industry, it is a defeat! They have not managed to build a working paid service. In the meanwhile the former Napster users have found several other programs and services with the same functionality as Napster (like KaZaA, Morpheus en AudioGalaxy). They are still exchanging music, and probably more than during the Napster era! Is that a victory for the music industry? I think not...

Update 18-5: Seems like it's not over yet. Konrad Hilbers and Napsters founder Shawn have returned. Bertelsmann paid another $ 8 million - getting near $ 100 million in total. So, no definite winner yet...