His words rang true. Adolescents in the States were no match for the best pros abroad, but the teenaged pirates could still be awesomely well organized. One group of teens might crack the software. Another group might craft a slick screen telling who had defeated the protection. Lord told of a 13-year-old making $24,000 a year writing and selling shareware; and although the business was legitimate, this example showed the energy and brains out there among the young—in other words, the difficulty of fighting rip-offs. Lord and Patterson were thinking about releasing IUMA offerings with digital identifiers that would make it easier to track down thieves. And yet another tack could be to design the music files that you could play only with the right digital keys. IUMA’s owners were of GenNet; they were more interested in relying on technology than law to thwart pirates. Piracy is one reason why major record companies feel uneasy about the Internet. Unable to ignore so large a market, they want help in getting their message across to the strange, young denizens. Warner paid IUMA to put short samples of music online, along with pictures and information about the artists. It was similar to what Patterson and Lord were doing already. Now, however, like many others, the two were looking ahead to new business models. Lord had a bunch of possibilities in mind. One was that people would pay if they liked what they heard, and maybe even give in advance. Another was that they would receive little gifts——maybe clay cats?——for making donations. Patterson, however, offered some models that were more conventional. Gasp, his comments even sounded like an actual business plan. First, he said, he and Lord would take orders for CDs and tapes online for companies such as Tower Records. Then IUMA would go the next step. It would sell files of music electronically. Fans would be able to use Web browsers like Netscape to encrypt credit card numbers so hackers couldn’t intercept them. Eventually IUMA would sell music for instant listening without customers first having to transfer it to their hard disks. “There could be some kind of royalty treatment,” Patterson said. “You might pay two cents every time you listened to a song. Or you could just buy an album.” Some good possibilities existed here as long as no one gouged. If people could hear music with just a tiny investment up front, that might benefit new performers.