As Susan Feingold ’91 points out, “Because music only has an audio component, files are smaller and easier to distribute electronically.”

When she applied to Columbia, Ms. Feingold already had run a small music-production company and worked at HBO during its formative years. After graduation, she joined Paul, Weiss as an associate “to ‘get my chops’ as a transactional attorney so that I could eventually return to the music industry in a legal/business affairs capacity.” Today, she is senior vice president, legal and business affairs, for EMI Recorded Music, North America.

“New technologies have radically altered virtually every aspect of the music business,” says Ms. Feingold. “The Internet is an extremely valuable marketing and promotion tool. Similarly, the Internet, wireless, and related digital compression technologies allow for radically altered distribution techniques. The ultimate challenge is how to maximize marketing and distribution capacities while simultaneously protecting owners’ and creators’ rights.”

Ms. Feingold believes that the trend toward consolidation of media “may, ironically, ensure that such a balance ultimately prevails if the biggest players in the world emerge as content owners in addition to being content users.”

With the early ambition of becoming a “theater diva,” Lori Landew ’87 chose Columbia largely because of the program in law and the arts. There she had the opportunity to work as a research assistant for Professor John Kernochan. After doing general litigation at a large corporate firm and IP work in smaller practice groups, Ms. Landew joined Zomba Recording Corp. in 1993.

“I had the chance to do everything from soup to nuts because this was a small company,” she says.

Today, she is vice president of business affairs for Zomba, now the world’s largest independent music company, with major acts such as Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, and ’NSync.

Ms. Landew says the Napster case is “a catalyst for change in the music industry. We need to examine what consumers want and find a way to deliver it and still have a successful business model.”