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The Napster Revolution and the Law

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


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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