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(More) Free Music

The free music streaming service that has a library containing over ten millions songs already enjoyed by Europeans is still in negotiations with record companies but hopes to break into America in 2010.
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The free music streaming service that has a library containing over ten millions songs already enjoyed by Europeans is still in negotiations with record companies but hopes to break into America in 2010. “A decade after Shawn Fanning unleashed Napster, 26-year-old Daniel Ek is generating tidal waves across Europe with Spotify, a company that offers upward of 10 million songs, streamed free over the Internet. The difference this time is that Spotify is a legal service, sanctioned by the music industry — to a degree. Ek, Spotify’s chief executive, had hoped to launch his service in the U.S. early this year. But he acknowledged that talks with record labels, along with thousands of music publishers and royalty collectors, had bogged down over details. Ek cited the complexity of dealing with numerous rights holders for the delay. Some music executives have questioned whether Spotify’s free, ad-supported service will help the beleaguered industry regain its economic footing. They worry that it could further erode the market for paid music.”

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Happy New Year
It’s plain to see that I’m an optimist, sometimes more than is socially comfortable. The ease with which I dismiss the disastrous economic decline above serves as one example of that. I wrote that the recession will benefit our political system, and, before I cut this line, as having “rewarded our company for methodical execution and ruthless efficiency by removing competitors from the landscape.” I make no mention of the disastrous effects on millions of people, and the great uncertainty that grips any well-briefed mind, because it truly doesn’t stand in the foreground of my mind (despite suffering personal loss of wealth). Our species is running towards a precipice with looming dangers like economic decline, political unrest, climate crisis, and more threatening to grip us as we jump off the edge, but my optimism is stronger now than ever before. On the other side of that looming gap are extraordinary breakthroughs in healthcare, communications technology, access to space, human productivity, artistic creation and literally hundreds of fields. With the right execution and a little bit of luck we’ll all live to see these breakthroughs — and members of my generation will live to see dramatically lengthened life-spans, exploration and colonization of space, and more opportunity than ever to work for passion instead of simply working for pay. Instead of taking this space to regale you with the many personal and focused changes I intend to make in 2009, let me rather encourage you to spend time this year thinking, as I’m going to, more about what we can do in 2009 to positively affect the future our culture will face in 2020, 2050, 3000 and beyond.
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