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Thursday, November 09, 2000
Napster is the poster child for the free music movement. Its fans say it sold out. With 38 million users, the company has rocketed to stardom and created a billion-dollar industry -- no, make that a promising service with the distinct possibility of becoming a billion dollar business -- no, make that a hunch that there's a business there somewhere.
It looks as if the hunch paid off -- but the result is not a business based on free music.
It's a business based on the same old record companies controlling the distribution of music -- in this case, new investor Bertelsmann controlling the way Napster distributes the music. The agreement between the two companies specifies a business model in which Napster requires payments from users in lieu of carte blanche music downloads. In return Bertelsmann gives Napster plenty of money and support to survive, and when Napster finally toes the pay-for-music line according to Bertelsmann parameters, Bertelsmann will drop its lawsuit against Napster. Bertelsmann has even invited its competitors to become part of the new Napster pay-for-play service.
Looking under the covers, the company went from rogue to riches by using unconventional PR tactics. According to Napster spinsters, it was all started by a college student (Shawn Fanning) who, if you believe them, had no aspirations to make money or change the music industry. He simply missed all his college classes risking financial and educational ruin, just so he could share music with his friends during a time period in which college students across the country were becoming paper millionaires by the score.
Then, after that same college student hooked up with some very savvy Silicon Valley venture capitalists, the newly created company goes on a public relations assault to build its user base -- and does it by making music free, thereby upsetting a very powerful cartel of record companies who become concerned about whether Napster's model will eliminate their primary revenue stream. Napster leverages its PR by hiring a high profile lawyer who is arguably worth more to the company as a PR envoy than he is as a legal advocate.
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Next, one of the biggest adversaries of the company -- a huge German record company (Bertelsmann) that could tie up Napster for years until Napster simply cannot survive -- decides to strike an agreement with the tiny Napster. We're told that Bertelsmann didn't "consult" with the other members of the recording cartel. Instead, it did the deal, and asked for the participation of its peers after the deal is already public.
Then, when you think that the PR spin may be ending, the CEO of Napster says that his company's new model is not a standard pay-for-play subscription service. It's a membership model; and as American Express said in its old advertising campaigns, membership has its privileges.
But business privileges don't include deceiving every group with which you're involved. Even though I'm on record for supporting a legal business model, in which the owners of rights should be paid for their creations, I wouldn't blame those 38 million users for defecting to other services -- free or paid. I'd be leery of forking over my hard-earned money to a company that puts a spin on every statement. It makes me think they're operating according to P.T. Barnum's main principle: "There's a sucker born every minute."
Q: Sometimes my menus seem to be missing some choices I need. How do I get them back?
A:You're probably using the personalized menu feature of Microsoft Office, in which the menu items that you use most often are shown, while the others are hidden. To temporarily show the long menu, simply hover your cursor over the menu until it appears in full, or click on the symbol with the two down arrows at the bottom of some menus. To turn off the feature completely, Select [Tools], then [Customize] to pop up the customize dialog box. On the [Options] tab, uncheck the box next to "Menus show recently used commands first."
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