Writes Fortune: “Napster as we knew it is gone. But what’s taken its place is a lot scarier for the music industry–and perhaps unstoppable. They’re called file-sharing services, or P2P networks in geek-speak, and the three most popular ones–Kazaa, Grokster, and Morpheus–have a combined 70 million active users, compared with only 20 million for Napster in its heyday. Oh, and it’s not just music being zapped across the Internet anymore. The new Napsters house videogames, software programs, and movies, including ones now playing in theaters.”
A related story on Salon on Bootleg culture: “Powerful computers and easy-to-use editing software are challenging our conceptions of authorship and creativity. As usual, the entertainment industry doesn’t like this one bit.”
