Hollywood joins the fight as the Napster war hots up

Part two: Scott reveals how the music industry leveraged star power to win over government before an unexpected ally got them over the line...

In 1999, an earthquake hit the music industry. Two renegade college kids hacked code to create Napster, changing music and the digital economy forever.

More than $10 billion was wiped out, and musicians went to war, while 26 million delighted music fans piled into piracy’s frontrunner, and loved what they found.

What’s an industry to do when a digital disrupter with zero responsibility drops an atom bomb into an internationally stable ecosystem that’s worked for half a century?

The crisis - and what happened next - bears startling similarities to the threat that publishers worldwide are facing from OpenAI, Perplexity, and others, today.

At the heart is flagrant copyright abuse, and the destruction of established business models, to break new ground for products that millions of consumers want.

One of those closest to the Napster fight and fallout, joins me to share how music righted itself from its death dive with strategies that news can use today.

In part one, former BMG record exec Scott Dinsdale revealed how Napster emerged from his industry’s worst fears to wreak havoc, setting the scene for a copyright battle for the ages.

In part two today, Scott shared how star power helped government rally to the cause, and how music found an unexpected ally that gave it the leverage to win…

In the third and final part, he will share a plan that the news industry can use right now to defeat the threat of AI.

Welcome to newsletter #269, and new subs overnight from the NOVA school of Social Sciences and Humanities in Lisbon, Portugal, non-profit Tech Policy Press in Brooklyn, New York, attorneys AV Privacy in San Francisco, and just down the road, the women-led venture studio Eighty 20, a sprinkling of ex-Googlers, the LA Daily News, and the South Australian Police, the first to use camels to patrol the vast terrain of the outback, among others. I salute you 🫡

Scott and I will be on stage together next month at the SportNXT Conference in Melbourne, discussing the shaping of future sport amid emerging tech and Media 3.0.

I you’d like me to speak at your event, please drop me a line below.

Now, part two of Napster, And The Lessons That Can Save News…