Post-Napster: Technology Will Tell The Tale
(04/03/01, 8:07 p.m. ET) By Mary Mosquera, InternetWeek
Now the hard work begins.
The courts may have told Napster Inc. to go straight. So now the challenge is getting a technologically simple online music service launched that protects copyrights, supports a business model, and gives consumers all the music they want.
Advances in technology and the will of businesses to overcome the complexities of delivering music legally over the Internet will be the key solutions to break the logjam of litigation and distrust, Internet and music providers told lawmakers on Tuesday.
The principal characters in the Internet music cauldron told the Senate Judiciary Committee in a standing-room only crowd that they were doing their part to advance a viable Internet music model.
But the representatives of Napster, the recording industry, technology service Liquid Audio, artists Alanis Morissette and Don Henley, and AOL Time Warner Inc. (stock: AOL) each said the others had to do more to break the logjam.
Downloading music from the Internet is more than an issue of protecting a recording company's catalog of songs, said Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).
It also entails evolving digital management rights technology, fair use rights for consumers, compensation for artists, competition, and security for copyrighted materials, he said.
