Artists and Media companies know that music copyright is impossible to enforce, and they do not build their business around selling of music content. In China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, no one buys CDs, but people spend a ton on consumer goods that are schilled by these artists, and also a ton on concerts to watch them perform live. US record labels need to wake up and figure out how to build real businesses around artists not tied to selling music.

> In China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, no one buys CDs

What are you talking about? This might be true for the other countries, but it is most definitely not true for Japan, as I explained in this post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4903236

It is amazing how hard this concept is for businesses to grasp. If you build your service and brand around trust with your customers, you will earn long-term value that far exceeds short term gain of focusing on money first. Unfortunately most companies don't have the patience or luxury to stay true to this approach, or have investors who push them away from this approach. We are really fortunate at Riot Games that we had great investors (Benchmark, FirstMark, Tencent) that let us stay true to our culture and approach.

Yeah, it sounds so obvious and self-evident. But when you have competing interests, it can be hard in practice.

They are already losing traction and engagement with their only remaining target userbase, namely musicians and bands. If Newscorp is able to unload it, it will likely be for a Bebo-like amount (when Aol sold it, not when they bought it, lol).

Having Yuri involved is also brilliant in that it will allow super early stage startups to think globally from the start, and while they may not focus on global markets when they design v1.0 of their products and services, they will at least be considering global market implications for how they build their products.

you also seem to suggest that they are directly competing with each other. i use both tumblr and posterous, but i would venture a guess that many many posterous users would never ever consider using tumblr, while many tumblr users would never ever consider any form of transportation other than the fixed gear bike or any type of pants other than the skinny jeans.

you use the word insofar a lot.

oh wow i cant believe i am just reading about this now after traveling for work the past 2 weeks. dan was my first yc friend and welcomed me to the community as a young vc looking for cool companies. i am utterly in shock and entirely saddened to learn about this. thoughts go out to his family and other friends.

rapidshare, zshare, sharebee, how many of these can exist? i mean if rapidshare goes down, just use one of the dozens of others no?

how bad is it that because i work in finance, i immediately assumed the "receptionist test" meant sitting with the receptionist for 5 minutes without sexually harrassing her or trying to hit on her. so sad haha.

HTC has a lot of stuff up their sleeves, this is just their first Android phone for the US. froma design perspective, before the iPhone came out, HTC was lightyears ahead of any other handset manufacturer. I'm very much looking forward to their future Android phones, especially since i cant freaking stand at&t and my iphone freezes/reboots all the freaking time. also waiting for instinctiv shuffle for iphone 3g haha. and shopsavvy.