There’s something about Apple—probably its nearly monopolistic control of certain markets or its disproportionate influence on the zeitgeist—that brings out the bloodlust in new-media commentators and gadget bloggers. Whenever some company rolls out a new MP3 player or smartphone, they seem to relish calling it an “iPod killer” or “iPhone killer,” even though products that actually pose a threat to Apple—like HTC’s Google-branded G1 smartphone—have so far been few and far between. Most don’t even leave a scratch.
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Napster, the first program to bring peer-to-peer file sharing to the general public, was also one of the first black-market services to go legit. It was relaunched by new owners Roxio in 2003 and then bought by Best Buy in 2008, and though it no longer operates as a P2P network, it offers both a pay-per-track store and subscription options for streaming and downloading. The Pirate Bay may have a similar future. Though its founders see their recent convictions as accessories to copyright crime as a victory of sorts, thanks to the sympathy for their cause that the proceedings generated (the Pirate Party is growing all over Europe, and the Swedish arm actually won a seat in the European Parliament), they’re still putting the site up for sale. A Swedish software company, Global Gaming Factory X, wants to buy the Pirate Bay for roughly $7.8 million and turn it into an aboveboard operation similar to the iTunes Store; the company had planned to close the deal in August, but it’s dragging its feet now that the Dutch copyright-defense group Stichting Brein has launched its own suit against the Pirate Bay and included the GGF as a defendant.
Buying one of the most popular sites on the Web might seem like a fail-safe move. Though a monetized version of the site would eliminate the reason most people visit it—to download free shit—like Napster, the Pirate Bay is still a powerful brand. There’s no doubt a good number of die-hard pirates among its massive user base, but there’s just as certainly a good number of people who’d pay for music if it were delivered how they wanted it.
Would-be iTunes killers can still make money without cooperating with the majors in any way, of course, if they’re willing to risk flirting with monetized piracy. Recently a start-up calling itself Zookz announced that it would be exploiting a 2007 WTO ruling against the United States that supposedly allowed Antigua to legally infringe on American intellectual property to the tune of $21 million in profit per year. It planned to offer unlimited music and movie downloads for a fixed monthly fee, with no money going to rights holders, but after a statement from the Antiguan government denying that Zookz was authorized to do any such thing, the option to subscribe to the service disappeared from the company’s site.
