AIMEE DEEP writes an obituary for Napster. As I said at the time of the decision, I think it was unfair to judge Napster based on its early history — in time, it probably would have become a major distribution tool for independent artists. Which I think is what worried the RIAA most.

And, as I predicted at the time, the suppression of Napster (which with a centralized architecture was something the record industry could have taken over and controlled) has produced many new music-sharing systems with bigger traffic, which are far harder to control.

But, of course, this isn’t really about the well-being even of record companies, but about protecting jobs for people in the record industry who contribute very little to their shareholders, their artists, or their customers. And, so far, the RIAA has done a pretty good job of that. Er, except for the steadily declining CD sales as people boycott them and turn to independent artists and lables, that is.