Book Review: Free Ride by Robert Levine
Why the war against Internet pirates and freeloaders now seems winnable
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Free Ride: How Digital Parasites
Are Destroying the Culture Business,
and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back
By Robert Levine
Doubleday; 320pp; $26.95
The decade before this one was rife with stories of how uncool it is to expect money for online-accessible content. In 2000, Lars Ulrich of the band Metallica was condemned as a greedy, out-of-touch “cyber narc” for daring to take on the file-sharing service Napster in court. Five years later, the New York Times was widely mocked for its first attempt at a paywall, TimesSelect, which charged users for the right to read its Op-Ed columnists and tap into its archives online. After an ignominious two years, the program was scrapped.