EMI to support a p2p service sponsored by ads

When Napster first appeared, I must admit that I took to it like a duck to water. Hoooo Ha....free music. But Napster, as we all know was short lived. In very short order, instead of Napster being the talk of the net, it quickly became the RIAA -- the recording industry.

For some reason, the recording industry just could not wrap their heads around p2p. So, instead of embracing new technology, they sued everyone that they could get for copyright theft. The recording industry lost a lot of money and they lost a lot of support. It alienated quite a few artists from their fans and still, downloading thrives in spite of all of the efforts of the recording industry.

Recording giant EMI announced that they would link with a p2p downloading site that was "powered" by advertising. That is, one could download songs from the EMI catalog for free.....well, free for the down loader. The site, according to the article, would be supported by the advertising and the revenue from ad sales would cover the cost of downloading the music. Simple, effective, brilliant (although certainly not a new concept among down loaders) and efficient.

All I can say is I hope that the other music companies get on this and start making their catalogs open for downloading. It's about time the companies embrace their fan base again instead of making enemies out of us.