The battle between (c), (p) and the online music space is just beginning. I am not sure who is going to be the winner in this battle, but it seems to me that it won't be the two groups that could use it the most: the artist
and the consumer. The fact that the judge in the MP3.com case ruled that two identical bytes of data (how ever stored) owned by two different people are not-indentical is going to make this playing field one of serious red tape. Although the net is suppose to make life easier and faster, it is going to be slowed down tremendously till it will be faster to hit a brick and mortar store and rip the CD yourself.
Now how is this going to work for other mediums such as E-Books, Videos and such?
And how come in the world of Software you can already see sites that allow you to buy and download the software instantly. Is this doable with software because people go to the actual software companies rather then an online retailer?
The buy-and-download music company Emusic, who I recall spends more then $1000 in marketing to obtain a customer that spends an average of $10 at their site, is not having too much luck helping the traditional folks online. It seems like the traditional folks want to stay out of the space as long as they can while collecting and in the end jump in themselves with the technology that is already build for them.
What makes music so different from any other product (it is a product according to the record labels anyways), it seems that if Microsoft pulled a "Napster" on Netscape to win the Browser War by making Internet Explorer freely available and default on any MS OS.
Aren't book publishers the record labels for books? A similar situation is starting there and unlike microsofts failed MS-Audio, they will now try to conquer the E-Book market with the Microsoft Reader. Now I would think if Microsoft makes the MS Reader free, then expect the Rocket EBook to potentially be Open Source'd in the footsteps of Mozilla to survive.
Just as we have already known, it is really your reach what makes the biggest difference and money can then turn around and totally kill that reach.
The Online music industry is really getting interesting and what is even more interesting is how open source products such as Linux and Apache through the help and dedication of developers and public corporations use are still standing and gaining ground by the minute.
Another view
and opinion on the subject was given by Salon.com.
