“It is true that the Graham family era of the Post is over. Donald Graham, CEO of the Washington Post Company, said they… "decided to sell only after years of familiar newspaper-industry challenges made us wonder if there might be another owner who would be better for the Post." But the beginning of the new age probably was back in 1999 when Napster and other companies pioneered peer-to-peer file sharing in the music industry. You may recall that Napster, started by computer programmer and entrepreneur bad boy Shawn Fanning, was shut down in 2001 after an unsuccessful appeal of a court order. The service was deemed a platform enabling the illegal sharing of copyrighted material. Key in this case is that the technology was not illegal. The illegal part was the sharing of content violating basic ownership, digital rights and copyright laws. The ruling underscored the fact that even in the Internet age content is king. Since Napster, many legal battles have been fought, and the rules for sharing content now have been established. And as with many communications clients I have had over the years, the court has decided – as it did in the Napster case – that what matters more is what you deliver and who owns it, not how you deliver it – whether over wire, fiber, undersea, terrestrial microwave, satellite, or a combination of all of these. Reflecting back on Napster, and returning to the recent Washington Post deal, it’s clear that Jeff Bezos paid a premium price for the content and the brand – not the distribution platform of a daily printed newspaper. That would follow a pattern he has established in his amazingly successful business career so far.”

http://www.businessinsider.com/opinion-why-jeff-bezos-bought-the-washington-post-2013-8