Will pop eat itself?
- This column was first published in the November 2007 issue of ITWeb Brainstorm magazine, under the title “Music business turned on its head”. If you’re in South Africa, you may wish to subscribe to the high-quality print version.
Ever since peer-to-peer music downloading became popular, the music industry has been in a deep crisis. Now comes the denouement.
The kid that started all the trouble was 18, a college dropout named Shawn Fanning. He created a piece of software called Napster, which started a peer-to-peer music downloading craze. Record companies were in a flat spin.
Now, eight years later, the game may finally be up for the record companies.
