Eric Scheirer Napster Quotations

Napster has always been a questionable business. They've never been a business making money. So what this really puts doubt on is whether they're ever going to be a service that makes any money or at some point they're just going to quietly fade away into Internet oblivion.

When the record industry is identifying particular pieces of music on Napster, they're pointing to specific files and where they see a file name. But clever users of Napster are doing things like writing the name backwards or putting it in code.

Consumers will use sites like Napster to get content for free.

They're already third-party Napster servers, that I can just point my Napster client (software) to some other server and I don't have to use a server that's run by Napster. You just download a different (small software program) and go to a different site an you can essentially use the same Napster service you were using before.

The basic problem is that DRM is trying to keep honest people honest. With Napster out there, that's not good enough. It only takes one person to break the encryption, and then the encumbered version is competing with the unencumbered version on Napster.