Stanford CIS

really more options?

By Stanford Center for Internet and Society on

I was struck by a quote in this story in the NY Times on the shutting down of Grokster. According to the chairman and chief executive of the National Music Publishers Association: "Now that a legal online entertainment environment has been established, the ultimate winners in the Grokster case are the music fans, who now have more options than ever before to hear the music they love."  Do publishers and the recording industry really think that getting rid of file sharing services like Grokster is a winner for the music fans? Personally, I would think a little healthy competition spurred by innovative technology like Grokster and BitTorrent would better serve music fans in providing "more options than ever before."

Published in: Blog