Would it be considered piracy...

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
I'm curious as to how much "bread & butter" Napster actually made.
They certainly didn't charge people to get the program or even use it, and I don't recall anything about ad sponsoring either.

Well, no. I don't think they did ever pull it off to the extent he wanted to. But that was the "business plan" and the idea that he was pushing. I think the lawsuit pretty much brought it to a halt before his dream was realized. You don't think he was just doing it for the fun of it do you? Napster was a corporation at one point, and had some assets. I don't know what the source of the revenues were. Possibly investors looking towards possible future returns? If he had won the suit and had retained the right to do what he wanted, it would not have been long before you started seeing "subscription fees" and ads. In fact that is likely to be the end result of the idea anyway. But the issue over whether the content providor deserves any compenastion was the foundation of the whole disagreement.

Geo