American Idle

Do you really want to know the day the music died? I can take you there. It's not that far a hike from today, actually. It was the moment that two kids, possibly time zones away, swapped MP3 song files online.

As the 1990s started winding down and dot-com watchers were glued to the promise of business-to-business transactions over the Internet, the real action wasn't taking place in B2B. No, the real revolution was being shaped 14 letters later in the alphabet as peer-to-peer networking -- or P2P -- was threatening to turn music empires to silent rubble.

As Napster passed the baton to more elusive networks such as KaZaA, it became clear that MP3 piracy was here to stay. It was no longer a matter of running over to a friend's house to bum a cassette copy of fresh vinyl. The viral ways of the Web created a global pool of gasoline. The next hit single was a match waiting to strike.

I realize that I'm in the minority here. Wall Street has made up its mind, sending shares of Apple lower since the rumor first surfaced this month. For them, I can only offer two words of advice:

Think different.