Keeping track of the digital-music industry’s lawsuits, countersuits, mergers and implosions is a bewildering task. While smaller players have been treading water and waiting for the shake-out to pass them by, bigger fish are poised to strike, picking off the tastiest morsels one by one, either by buying them outright or keeping them off-balance with one lawsuit after another.
On Monday, we saw two developments that illustrate the direction the industry is taking: Sony and Universal announced that the music subscription service formerly known as “Duet” will now be known as “Pressplay” and will be headed by Andy Schuon, formerly of Farmclub.com. Meanwhile, online music provider Listen.com agreed to drop its lawsuit against the Recording Industry Association of America. And that was just in one day. Let’s pause and take a breath here at the halfway point of 2001 and glance back at the past six months.
