Word: freenet
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...Maybe. But if they're merely cheap, Gnutella and FreeNet are still in business - as is Napster, pending the lawsuit's outcome. With his legal department looking on, Middelhoff figures Bertelsmann's getting a speculative stake in the online music revolution. But as mp3.com can tell you, taking the "r" out of "free" can drive users away faster than yelling "directed by Kevin Costner" in a crowded movie theater...
...really isn't a business, not yet. And if Fanning loses this case, there never will be a business, at least not for this P2P company. By the time the case reaches a final verdict, in six months or a year, some other hotshot P2P site--Gnutella, perhaps, or Freenet--might have become flavor of the month. Napster, for all the storm and fury it has engendered, could be remembered as a peculiar millennial trend--like those little chrome scooters--rather than an epochal event...
Perhaps. But peer-to-peer file sharing, it's now clear, is here to stay. Even if Napster is driven out of business, there are new, even more intractable sharing systems--notably Gnutella and Freenet--that allow files to be traded directly from PC to PC, without going through a single website like Napster's. These renegade services would be harder to shut down because they have no centralized plugs to pull, no company officers to sue. Former Public Enemy rapper Chuck D got it right: trying to stop file sharing over the Internet, he says, "is like trying...
...they were to shut it down in America, it would move to Canada or somewhere else," says Boies. "There's a reason they call it the World Wide Web--it's literally worldwide." At the same time, newer, more decentralized file-sharing systems like Gnutella and Freenet, which have no central authority in charge, are emerging. When people use those services to exchange pirated music, it will be hard to find anyone...
...then they'll just go elsewhere. Gnutella, Freenet, Scour Exchange, iMesh and CuteMX are all ready to catch Napster's disappointed fans. One service, Audiofind, responded to news of the imminent shutdown by posting the message "BYE BYE NAPSTER!!" on its web site...