3 ms·

To be fair, it's only the aol acquisition that gave them potential access to the time warner music library and the ability to go negotiate deals with the other

by earl 14y ago

To be fair, it's only the aol acquisition that gave them potential access to the time warner music library and the ability to go negotiate deals with the other content owners. I think it's unlikely 4 guys in arizona making $100k/mo with no connections could have made that happen.

intended 14y ago
There are several small teams with no connections who later went on to make things happen. Today if you had similar pedigree, you would be planning for early stage investors.
- earl 14y ago
  I think it's unlikely in this case. Content producers ask for enormous up fronts, and you'd either hire very good in house attorneys or pay Fenwick & West or Wilson Sonsini a ton of money. Not to mention the RIAA had just lost in June '99 their lawsuit against Diamond, manufacturer of the Rio mp3 player, [1] essentially challenging the legitimacy of the idea of mp3 players period. In 2000 the RIAA was in the midst of suing napster [2]; Rhapsody, the first legal music service that I'm aware of, wasn't released until 2001, and they didn't get anything but indie music until mid 2002 (not quite sure about this date). [3] I think it's safe to say it took both contacts and a ton of money, neither of which nullsoft had outside aol. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_PMP300 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_PMP300 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhapsody_(online_music_service) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhapsody_(online_music_service)
  - intended 14y ago
    Is content sharing the only opportunity they had? Perhaps; thinking at that time was focused on making a content and tech juggernaut. I remember a Time cover (I think) talking about how AOL+Time Warner was a great deal. Still, given a chance to figure stuff out on their own, I can only assume that they would have figure something out and even had a chance to implement it when not curtailed by AOL.

by earl 14y ago

intended 14y ago

There are several small teams with no connections who later went on to make things happen. Today if you had similar pedigree, you would be planning for early stage investors.

earl 14y ago
I think it's unlikely in this case. Content producers ask for enormous up fronts, and you'd either hire very good in house attorneys or pay Fenwick & West or Wilson Sonsini a ton of money. Not to mention the RIAA had just lost in June '99 their lawsuit against Diamond, manufacturer of the Rio mp3 player, [1] essentially challenging the legitimacy of the idea of mp3 players period. In 2000 the RIAA was in the midst of suing napster [2]; Rhapsody, the first legal music service that I'm aware of, wasn't released until 2001, and they didn't get anything but indie music until mid 2002 (not quite sure about this date). [3] I think it's safe to say it took both contacts and a ton of money, neither of which nullsoft had outside aol. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_PMP300 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_PMP300 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhapsody_(online_music_service) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhapsody_(online_music_service)
- intended 14y ago
  Is content sharing the only opportunity they had? Perhaps; thinking at that time was focused on making a content and tech juggernaut. I remember a Time cover (I think) talking about how AOL+Time Warner was a great deal. Still, given a chance to figure stuff out on their own, I can only assume that they would have figure something out and even had a chance to implement it when not curtailed by AOL.