BMG Surrenders to Shawn Fanning

Major record labels such as BMG and Universal Music privately surrendered to Shawn Fanning, creator of the original music sharing website, Napster.

"You win, Fanning - you win. We'll give you whatever you want - sale via .wavs, .mp3s, whatever.", said BMG chairman Nicholas Firth. "Just call off the Torrents, would you?"

According to one insider, "We realized, after a decade of declining sales, that people weren't going to buy a product they couldn't use. That's when the Ghost of Music Past appeared and showed us the error of our ways."

"If we can't sell the music, at least we can sell the advertising next to it. I'm told that Google has done fairly well with that business model."