At 10:25 PM 2/14/01 -0800, Alan Olsen wrote:
The things I find most interesting in the way of the non-traditional music distribution channels are the things I *cannot* buy.
Using the search mechanisms, you can find groups in a genre you are interested in. For instance, 'industrial' will find files whose names include that label. An interesting problem for Napster et al: if they have to control the indexing of files that are claimed by Content Corporations, they can't just use the name of a band. Because you can label your own, public-domain music with their "proprietary" labels, e.g., "Joe's Band ---better than Metallica" (Also many files are 'covers' of other songs.) And watermarking the files won't work. So implementing the control that the courts will require, without being heavy-handed, is not nearly as easy as the courts might imagine.