New online treats for 1709 readers

I found three interesting articles online this week, all from the USA and all looking at the changing face of the music industry

Assessing Napster - 10 Years After by Benny Evangelista at the San Francisco Chronicle does what it says - looks at the history of Napster, set up by the then 18 year old Shawn Fanning ten years ago (and named after his haircut!) and then takes a look at Napster's impact on the music industry. Click on this link for more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/01/MNI917R8PB.DTL

The New York Times takes a peek at moves by the music industry in Australia to increase revenues from nightclubs - the article Music Industry Sees Nightclubs as a New Source of Revenue is by Eric Pfanner and looks at how a recent copyright settlement has increased the payment made by nightclubs for each patron from seven cents to fifty cents, and will ultimately rise to one dollar and five cents. A big increase - but as the music industry points out, all that music to keep the punter entertained -and the payment isn't anywhere near the cost of even one drink ..... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/business/media/01iht-music01.html?_r=1&ref=arts

And finally, here's a well written pop at Harvard Law Professor Charles Nesson, who is currently supervising a student team defending alleged file swapper Joel Tenenbaum (much to the annoyance of the US record labels). It's written by The Recording Industry of America's General Counsel Steven Marks and you might ask 'is it opinionated?' - and the answer is 'most certainly'! Marks argues that the RIAA's litigation campaign against file-swappers is secondary to creating vibrant legal alternatives—but it's still absolutely essential and completely fair. The article can be found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/05/riaa-responds.ars