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[FYI] The Napster Revolution and the Law



http://www.heise.de/tp/english/kolumnen/gol/8806/1.html

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The Napster Revolution and the Law  

Michael H. Goldhaber   28.09.2000  

Intellectual property is the glue that holds together the suddenly 
antiquated corporate order  

When a French mob a few thousand strong stormed the Bastille in 1789, 
it was the start of a revolution that swept away the ancien regime of 
nobles and king, marking the death knell for feudalism. In 2000, with 
Napster and its ilk, Internet users more than twenty million strong 
are storming another bastion of what is now the old regime. All they 
are doing is exchanging music that can be found in one another's 
collections. But by that they threaten to undermine corporate control 
by means of intellectual property laws.  

Soon perhaps, the once mighty record companies will lie in ruins, no 
longer able to restrict what may be listened to, no longer able to 
determine musical tastes. And the revolution may soon spread much 
further than that, for intellectual property is the glue that holds 
together the now suddenly antiquated corporate order.  

[...]

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