Richard A. Martin

Late last year in a glitzy L.A. hotel ballroom, the usually convivial music-technology conference called Webnoize briefly devolved into something out of The Jerry Springer Show. The central figures in the verbal fracas were Eileen Richardson, the CEO of the upstart San Mateo company Napster, which had just introduced a......

Art by Dave ShulmanDRESSED IN BLACK JEANS AND EQUALLY black Dr. Martens boots, Todd Sawicki still looks like he could be a member of the cool clique at his alma mater, Duke University. Instead, for the past six months, he's been holding court with 200 of the world's most powerful......

BACK IN THE PRE-INTERNET ERA, PUBLIC Enemy spat out an urgent rallying cry: "Don't believe the hype!" Then, faced with the potentially revolutionary concept of distributing its music over the Web, the famed New York hip-hop group changed its tune, first endorsing the controversial MP3 format and now joining hands......

THE COUNTDOWN CONTINUES: LESS than six months to go before the computer industry's two-digit oversight sends everyone into their basements with their shotguns, canned beans and festering millennial fears. Not me, though. I've made my digital daily affirmation by clicking from site to site, reading cushiony Y2K-readiness disclosures. My electric......