Yikes! Napster offers the music

Yikes! Napster offers the music industry $1 billion to settle!
I just read this now on CNN.com, which posted it a little more than an hour ago — this is the link to the story. All I have to say is that $1 billion is a shitload of money, and it depresses me to think of the music industry win the fight in this manner, even if Napster is a pretty poor champion for peer-to-peer networking and file sharing. Yet, if the music industry takes them up on the offer, this sets no legal precedent. Of course, then, the music industry may reject the offer, perferring to take a chance at a legal victory, setting precendent in law, over getting a quick billion. While taking the money would get Napster out of their hair, it would give them less legal ammunition against other p2p networks. I’ll post more as I hear about it (and think about it).

Wired News’ article (via Reuters) on the proposed deal.