📸 Photo

the computer-savvy, it also fit the hacker and free-software ethics.) Richardson figured that the best way to keep those fans as evangelists was to reach them through the people they admired most—the rock stars. If enough big names weighed in on Napster's side, the record companies would lose a lot of the weight behind their moral and political arguments, if not their legal case. So she embarked on a sensitive campaign to get endorsements or investments from top acts. She spoke secretly to Madonna business partner Guy Oseary and to early online music enthusiast and Beastie Boy Mike Diamond, among others. Since many bands were afraid to anger the record companies responsible for their promotion, most of the discussions were never made public, and some rockers who were supportive could do little to show their feelings. Napster posted the public tributes it did win prominently on its website. Courtney Love, Prince, and Dave Matthews all had quotes lifted from news articles. And Chuck D of Public Enemy went further, writing in an April 2000 New York Times op-ed piece that Napster was “a new kind of radio—a promotional tool that can help artists who don't have the opportunity to get their music played on mainstream radio or on MTV.” Napster quietly paid Chuck D $100,000 and made the most of his endorsement, offering $5,000 for the best pro-Napster lyric written to accompany “donated” music from Public Enemy. Techno star Moby was also a big help, saying that “most people I know who listen to a lot of MP3s will download a lot of different songs, and if they like the song they'll go out and buy the album. The record company doesn't want me to say this, but out of the millions of MP3 files that are out there, if someone chooses to download one of my songs or an album of mine, I'm very flattered.” A key part of the underlying debate, whether file-sharing has helped or hurt conventional sales, has yet to be resolved. The federal judge in the major suit against Napster would rule that it hurt, rejecting some surveys suggesting otherwise.

Several unknown bands that had been through hell with their labels cheered Napster on, in part because of serious thinking about the future of the music industry and in part out of a desire for revenge. Michael Lawrence, a Los Angeles musician who had been with a big label, wrote to Napster that he was a new and enthusiastic user of the service. He complained that his label had taken back 85 percent of the advance