BIG EARNINGS FROM THE INTERNET
[translated by cindy kandolf]

Morten Harket has earned over a quarter of a million Norwegian kroner [about
US$35,000] on Internet stocks in the course of six months.  Just this last
month the pop star has become NOK175,000 [about US$25,000] richer. 

According to records, Morten owns 3237 shares in the Norwegian Internet 
company Fast Search Transfer, which is the source of this secondary 
income.

Since the middle of January share prices for Fast have almost tripled: 
from 30 to 86 kroner per share.  Last year the price was about 20 kroner.

The sharp price increase means that Morten Harket's shares have increased 
in value from NOK13,000 to NOK275,000 in just over a month.  Morten has 
"earned" a quarter of a million kroner in less than a year!

TOOK OFF

The value of Fast shares shot up like a rocket when it became known that 
the American Internet company Lycos had entered a partnership with Fast 
to use the Norwegian company's file search system to download music from 
the Internet.

Before Lycos became interested, Fast's share value hadn't risen much.  
Fast has built up the world's largest online database of music files with 
the help of a technology called mp3, an abbreviation computer enthusiasts 
believe will soon be a household word.  The very effective search engine 
Fast has developed make it possible to download just about any piece of 
music from the net, according to [Norwegian finance magazine] Kapital.  
The problem has been that searches on the Internet are very slow.  Fast, 
as the name suggests, makes it easier, faster and simpler to find one's 
way around the Internet.

ADVERTISING

But Fast has a new problem: Many of the music files the company has in 
its database contain music that may be illegally distributed through the 
Internet.

But even if the music business is raising questions about the legal 
issues and the artists' loss of income, Morten Harket doesn't agree.

"The distribution of music through mp3 files will never become a big 
issue.  You can look at it instead as a kind of advertising," Morten 
Harket said to [Norwegian business-oriented newspaper] Dagens Næringsliv 
a few weeks ago.  According to Harket's manager Atle Kigen, Morten Harket 
is unavailable for comment this week.