Irresistible Forces: The Business Legacy of Napster and the Growth of the Underground Internet

This is book is about - but not only about - Napster. The story of Napster is important in its own right, but its legacy even more so. The phenomenon that surrounds Napster has highlighted the extraordinary potential for the mass mobilisation of consumer and community power. This irresistible force - the underground internet - has blown apart conventional models of doing business. Merriden charts the birth of Napster and its genesis in Internet music communities. He describes how big business felt complacent enough to ignore Napster, only to turn on it when the truth about their business models dawned. As the big companies got nasty Bertelsmann and Thomas Middelhof broke ranks and did a deal with Napster. Irresistible Forces examines the legacy of Napster and its lasting impact on e-Business. In particular it charts the future of digital rights management, the lasting effect of Napster on the music and other content businesses, the rise of business to community models and the peer-to-peer future. Irresistible Forces is the soundtrack for the new world of the Internet

"I believe that the peer-to-peer technology on which Napster is based has the potential to be adopted for many different uses. People generally speak about the ability to share other kinds of files in addition to music, and indeed, Napster has been contacted by entities such as the Human Genome project that are interested in sharing information among specific communities of interest. But peer-to-peer technology, or distributed computing, also has tremendous opportunity for sharing resources or computing power, lowering information and transaction costs. Peer-to-peer could be used to create a pool of resources in aggregate to solve a range of complex storage, processing and bandwidth problems. Peer-to-peer also has the potential to change today's understanding of the relationship between source and site. Think how much faster and more efficient the internet could be is instead of always connecting you to a central server every time you click on to a web site, your computer would find the source that housed that information nearest to you - if it's already on the compter of the kid down the hall, why travel halfway around the world to retrieve it? A number of companies, from Intel on down to small start-ups, are looking at ways to develop peer-to-peer technology, and I believe that many of them will succeed." Shawn Fanning, Napster creator, on the wider potential of peer-to-peer networking.

This book is about - but not only about - Napster. The story of Napster is important in its own right, but its legacy even more so. The phenomenon that surrounds Napster has highlighted the extraordinary potential for the mass mobilisation of consumer and community power. This irresistible force - the underground Internet - has blown apart conventional models of doing business. Merriden charts the birth of Napster and its genesis in Internet music communities. He describes in detail how big businesses felt complacent enough to ignore Napster, only to turn on it when the truth about their business models dawned. As the big companies got nasty, Bertelsmann and Thomas Middelhof broke ranks and did a deal with Napster. The rapid spread in Napster's popularity has made many businesses sit up and notice. And it wasn't just because of the court room battles highlighted by the media every day. Some estimates put the peak number of Napster users at around 58 million. Hard to ignore the cries of the masses. Through the aftermath of those bloody court rooms, Napster has left a lasting impact on the future of e-business. This legacy affects more than music and record companies. In irresistible forces, Trevor Merriden shows how all businesses who have an interest in the Internet should pay attention. The influence on business of file sharing and peer-to-peer technology will be profound in the years ahead. Contents......Page 5 Preface and Acknowledgments......Page 7 CHAPTER 1 The Birth of the Napster Phenomenon......Page 15 CHAPTER 2 Why Napster Spread Like Wildfi re......Page 28 CHAPTER 3 Big Boys Get Angry......Page 45 CHAPTER 4 The Battle Commences......Page 63 CHAPTER 5 The Voice of the People: the Fury of the Underground Internet......Page 76 CHAPTER 6 Bertelsmann (and the End of Napster As We Know It)......Page 98 CHAPTER 7 Children of Napster – Music and Video......Page 111 CHAPTER 8 Post-Napster: Will Online Subscription Prosper?......Page 125 CHAPTER 9 Napster, File Sharing and Peer-to-Peer – the Impact on the Wider Business World......Page 138 CHAPTER 10 Newcomers and Old Stagers......Page 151 CHAPTER 11 Irresistible Forces and Immovable Objects......Page 163 CHAPTER 12 Conclusion – Napster, Business and the Future......Page 180 Index......Page 187