Of course they did… The labels have told Napster to take their Billion and shove it. Not much of a surprise there. Hillary “Nazi Beeeotch” Rosen made a statement: “Stop the infringements. Stop the delay tactics in court, and redouble your efforts to build a legitimate system. This path would be more productive than trying to engage in business negotiations through the media.” I don’t see how shutting the service down completely is productive in any way, either – she claims that they, too, want Napster to go legitimate and work out deals with the labels. Once again, she doesn’t seem to get that by shutting the service down in the interim, they will lose all of the users – when any website or internet service is down for any substantial period of time, even a week, they can kiss their user base good bye – it’s the nature of the internet… same here – people will flock to other file-trading services – ones that can’t be shut down or even sued.
Richard Parsons, COO for AOL gets the Asshole Award this week for ripping off John F. Kennedy’s inaugural speech: “We must be prepared to pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friends, oppose any foe to protect the interests and property rights of those in the artistic community whom we represent.”