Not entirely on topic, but over on slashdot, Lars Ulrich, the drummer for Metallica, gives an long, detailed, online interview about the whole Napster affair, based on questions sent in by slashdot readers. http://slashdot.org/interviews/00/05/26/1251220.shtml It's interesting to see the point of view of an IP creator, pretty clearly unfiltered by lawyers. He comes off as intelligent and thougtful, but not at all net-savvy. He scores points as to what's *good* about recording companies, and his right to control how his creative output gets used. He clearly does not get or is unaware of, the 'cypherpunk' take on this - that the Internet has changed the ground rules, and it may no more be possible for him to control the future use of his product than he could command the flght of wild geese. He still thinks that gnutella, freenet, et al, are companies on which the same types of pressure can be brought to bear as was brought against Napster. Personally, I'd like the world to be arranged so that the creative are remunerated for their work, and producers can raise hundreds of millions of dollars to make an ass-kicking ship-disaster movie (even if a timewasting romance subplot has to be included :-). I'm just not sure if and/or how this can be done in the future. Peter Trei
