Lots and lots going on in the music world and points nearby:

• Lance Bass replaced by cargo container. Is that just a nickname for Joey Fatone? This story just keeps getting better. First, the N'Sync singer's sponsors apparently couldn't come up with the money to put him in space. Then Ted Nugent offers a cheaper ($1 million) vacation where he'll learn to hunt with a bow and arrow. So many punchlines, so little time.
• Napster gone for good. The file-swapping pioneer officially goes out of business, and a judge blocks the sale of the company's assets to corporate sugar daddy Bertlesmann. I haven't looked too closely, but no one really seems to care. Users have moved on to the next generation of programs. Given the nature of the whole phenomenon, I'm not surprised that there isn't any feeling of loyalty here. It's about getting stuff for free, not about who allows you to do it. Yes, I'm still bitter about Napster effectively making my stock options at my last job worthless.
• Record sales down 7%. As usual, fingers are pointed at the Internet and not on the unmitigated crap the labels are foisting on the public. This is why they don't get much sympathy. They made a big deal in their press release over a survey that found a greater percentage of people who download bought less CDs, rather than more. Allegedly, this would debunk the theory that downloading actually increases CD sales, except that they either didn't ask how much less or how much more, or they did, and the people who bought more CDs more than made up for the other group. The safe money is that they didn't even ask the question, so as not to allow for the possibility that they'd be proven wrong.
• Verizon won't give major labels individual file-swapper data. This is a very interesting development. I may need to read up on this to see if it's a straight privacy issue, or they're contesting the illegality of file-sharing. Would Verizon ID users who are trading warez, but not songs?
  Posted by notabbott
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  > Posted by: Xtian on September 27, 2002 12:47 PM

  RIAA Demands End to
  Unauthorized Humming, Whistling

  San Francisco, Calif. — After using the courts to keep Napster and MP3.com from freely distributing music over the Internet, the Recording Industry Association of America today asked a federal judge to stop people from humming or whistling copyrighted songs in public.

  "Anyone who publicly hums or whistles is disseminating copyright-protected music and thereby infringing on our artists' rights," said RIAA spokesman Janet Fogerty. "Also, we don't like it when the wind blows. It sounds too much like the beginning to Elton John's 'Funeral for a Friend.'"
  

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