2) The record companies will never agree to any settlement with Napster.

Riding on the coattails of the last section, one has to realize how much the record companies - and the RIAA - hate Napster. In a conversation I once had with David Basskin, President of the CMRRA (Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency) he said to me "I'd like nothing more than to see Napster shut down." I'm sure if I dug a little bit more, I could find similar quotes from Hilary Rosen (President of the RIAA) and most of the major label execs.

Napster is stealing their livelihood from them. The record labels have always been a distribution channel - and if a better channel were to arise (such as Napster or similar programs), what would stop musicians from flocking to it, especially considering how much the labels gouge their artists? (More on this later).

Cooperating with Napster would also make the labels look vulnerable. Napster has fought them tooth and nail at every turn, and not until the final battle was lost did they try to work with the labels. Suddenly, they went from "The blocking technology doesn't exist" to "We'll have the blocking in place tomorrow". With an about-face like that - basically admitting that they were either lying through their teeth or incredibly stupid - why would the labels want to cooperate with them? And after being opposition for so long, they'd make strange bedfellows - it'd be like firing a gun at someone, missing, then asking to be friends and not have them shoot back. (I'm not sure where that analogy came from, but it was all I could think of at the time).

There's too much animosity there. A settlement will never happen, and both parties know it. The battle is over, and the loser must accept defeat.

Next: 3) P2P file sharing cannot be stopped.

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