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Frank Zappa's iTunes in 1983

Kult of kewl

July 15, 2005 01:51 PM PST

I ran across this a while back, and thought it would be an interesting post. By Frank Zappa, it's a quick read, humorous, and very ahead of its time: A PROPOSAL FOR A SYSTEM TO REPLACE ORDINARY RECORD MERCHANDISING.

We require a LARGE quantity of money and the services of a team of mega-hackers to write the software for this system. Most of the hardware devices are, even as you read this, available as off-the-shelf items, just waiting to be plugged into each other so they can put an end to "THE RECORD BUSINESS" as we now know it.

Comments (3)
John, July 15, 2005 03:07 PM:

I read this some time back. It was pretty much technically impossible back when it was written, but very forward thinking. A good read.

John, July 15, 2005 03:20 PM:

This is an interesting online comic on micropayments for online music. Its pretty good:

I Can't Stop Thinking #6

J, July 15, 2005 07:31 PM:

I like that comic a lot. I don't agree that micropayments are this panacea. They basically go against the main principles the web was founded on, and the principles of altruism that he says drives filesharing today. I wrote a long comment, but I'll turn it into its own post.






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