“Coming right up. That’ll be two dollars.”

“Here you go. Whoops! I dropped my money.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll pick it up. Say, don’t I know you? Weren’t you that Internet music guy? The one who was going to revolutionize the business?”

“That’s right.”

“You were gonna change the world. What happened?”

“You know that service we introduced last January? The one where once you proved ownership of a CD, like Elton John or Brad Paisley, we would stream a copy of the music to your computer?”

“Do I remember? I loved that service. I loaded up my own account with CDs by Whitney Houston, The Wallflowers and The Offspring. It was great!”

“We thought so, too. But the record labels sued us for copyright infringement. They said we couldn’t stream copies to people unless we had licensing rights. Said it didn’t matter that the customer already owned the CD.”

“That’s tough.”

“Tell me about it. In the end we had to negotiate licenses with each label. Cost us millions in legal fees. Whoops, I dropped my bar napkin. Would you mind?”

“Not at all. Here you go. I guess after all those lawyer fees, you couldn’t afford to run the company, eh?”

“Oh, no. We had earmarked more than enough cash to settle with the labels. All I had to do was sign the contracts and we’d be back in business, streaming Reel Big Fish, face to face and String Cheese Incident to anyone that could prove ownership. But, I just couldn’t go through with it.”

“Couldn’t back down from what you believed in, eh? Were you still thinking that music by John Hiatt or Steve Vai was meant to be free?”

“No, nothing like that. It was a physical problem. I was in a traffic accident when I was a kid. A car hit me while I was swimming in a hotel pool. Damn that Keith Moon.”

“But I still don’t understand why an injury would keep you from signing the licensing deals with the record labels.”

“The accident really screwed up my back. The doctors had to replace my spine with a stainless steel rod.”

“You mean…”

“That’s right. With that steel rod in my back, when it came to settling with the record labels, I couldn’t bend over far enough to grab my ankles.”

“I’m so sorry. Here, have another beer. On the house.”

“Thanks, but I have to get going. Whoops, I dropped my car keys. Would you mind…”