*** Democracies Online Newswire - http://www.e-democracy.org/do *** Word about the appellate victory for Napster is just getting out <http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-2376465.html>. I spent some time this afternoon visiting a number of Napster/MP3 related web sites. You ought to check out the anti-government/music industry talk on many of the discussion boards. Prior to the announcement about Napster having more time, I had the sense that the Napster closing was going to go down in history as the Tiananmen Square for the music industry and young music listeners. While MoveOn.Org allow boomers (and others I am sure) to sign a petition in protest over Clinton's impeachment, the Napster/MP3 episode represents one of the first politicizations of entertainment-interested young Internet users. In some sense, this is the first time young Internet users have felt the presence of the state and organized interests limiting their online freedoms. I have wondered how those coming on to the Internet "as it is" versus early users who started with big visions about what it "ought to be" might differ in their expectations and motivations. I really don't know. Will new users take the Internet for granted and not push for greater civic and political use or will converting tools of private chat and entertainment to political purposes be second nature? If it is the later, then watch out. It will be important to see how Napster/MP3 users react politically now that a file/music sharing tool they seem to cherish is threatened. While I don't perceive great political savvy among the pro-napster sites (i.e. no blue ribbon campaign or advanced use of e- mail list) it is clear that web boards, chat, and personal e-mail networks are being used to spread the word. Below are a collection of sites from all sides of the issue. Steven Clift Democracies Online Newswire http://www.e-democracy.org/do NapsterMania http://www.napstermania.com Recording Industry of America http://www.riaa.com/ Boycott RIAA http://boycott-riaa.com/ Boycott the RIAA http://linux1285.dn.net/napster/ Stop Napster - Artists Protecting Artists http://www.stopnapster.com/ Simple Petition http://napsterpetition.homestead.com/ MP3 Goes to Washington http://news.mp3.com/news/liststory/?topic_id=757&month=200007 Artists Against Piracy http://www.artistsagainstpiracy.com/ Pay Lar$ http://www.paylars.com/ Technie run arounds ... Napigator http://www.napigator.com/ OpenNap http://opennap.sourceforge.net/ FreeNet http://freenet.sourceforge.net/ Gnutella http://gnutella.wego.com AudioGnome http://www.audiognome.com/ Some news ... http://fullcoverage.yahoo.com/Full_Coverage/Tech/Digital_Music/ ^ ^ ^ ^ Steven L. Clift - W: http://www.publicus.net Minneapolis - - - E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Minnesota - - - - - T: +1.612.822.8667 USA - - - - - - - ICQ: 13789183 *** Please send submissions to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** To subscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** Message body: SUB DO-WIRE *** *** To unsubscribe instead, write: UNSUB DO-WIRE *** *** Please forward this post to others and encourage *** *** them to subscribe to the free DO-WIRE service. ***
