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TIME Europe Home   Europe   Middle East   Africa   World   Digital Europe   Business   Travel & Arts   Photo Essays   TIME Trails   Magazine   Archive   Fast Forward Special Features   Fast Forward   Forecast 2001   E-Europe Search TIME Europe   Subscribe to TIME Subscriber Services About Us TIME Daily TIME Asia TIME Canada TIME Pacific TIME Digital Latest CNN News FREE NEWSLETTER! Sign up now for TIME's WorldWatch email newsletter. [ preview ]   Check the New 2000 FORTUNE 500 Today! FORTUNE.com Sivy On Stocks, By E-Mail MONEY.com The 'X-Men' Cometh And EW's Got 'Em! ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY			4. Andreas Schmidt Bertelsmann Job description: President and CEO of Bertelsmann's e-Commerce Group Age, Nationality: 39, German Web address: www.bertelsmann.com He's the architect of Bertelsmann's audacious new deal with Napster, which could redefine content distribution. Schmidt, who until last summer headed AOL Europe, believes that Napster's technology — a peer-to-peer file-sharing service — can be applied to all types of media distribution, with fees coming from users. The choicest bits of Bertelsmann's media empire are being moved into Schmidt's e-Commerce operation. These include BMG's music, its 12 million music club members and online music retailer CDNow, online book retailers barnesandnoble.com and bol.com, and the broadband operations of the RTL Group. Schmidt also wants to distribute Bertelsmann's content over cell phones. The vision thing: "The principal goal is digital distribution, to define the standards and the business model over the various pipes available." Forward spin: Peer-to-peer file-sharing could be an effective distribution system for Bertlesmann, but digital copyrights remain a prickly issue. And the company still faces the difficult task of getting others in the media industry on board. The A-List TIME Digital table of contents TIME Europe home E-mail us at mail@timeatlantic.com PHOTO: Stephan Sahm — LAIF The A-List 1. PHILIPPE BRAWERMAN Reef 2. JORMA OLLILA Nokia 3. KEIJI TACHIKAWA NTT DoCoMo 4. ANDREAS SCHMIDT Bertelsmann 5. CHRIS GENT Vodafone Airtouch 6. STEPHAN SCHAMBACH Intershop 7. COLLY MYERS Symbian 8. ROBIN SAXBY ARM Holdings 9. LARS RAMQVIST Ericsson 10. HJALMAR WINBLADH Microsoft 11. STEFAN ROEVER Brokat 12. MARK SCHNEIDER UPC 13. LYNN FORESTER FirstMark Communications 14. HANS SNOOK Orange 15. ALEX VIEUX Dasar 16. ANTOINE SCHWARTZ Goldman Sachs 17. JEAN-PASCAL TRANIÉ Viventures 18. HERMANN HAUSER Amadeus Capital Partners 19. JULIE MEYER First Tuesday 20. JUAN ROURE IESE 21. MIKE LYNCH Autonomy 22. BRIAN LONG Parthus Technologies 23. PAUL ZWILLENBERG KPE 24. OLLI MARTIKAINEN Necsom 25. JOHN HODGSON Cambridge Silicon Radio WHAT DO YOU THINK? E-mail us at mail@timeatlantic.com Copyright © 2001 Time Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. E-mail us:  Letter to the Editor | Customer Service Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Press Releases