Napster Essays (1410 words) - Virtual Communities, Metallica

Napster If you want to know where a Silicon Valley-ite stands in the ongoing war for the soul of the Internet, just ask him or her what the buzzword is these days. Many will tell you it is B2B, a backslapping shorthand for e-schemes directed to the business to business market. But those who still believe that the Internet revolution is still a seething, evolving, paradigm-busting phenomenon will offer a different buzzword: Napster (Levy 68). This new term pertains to a specific digital-music program, the start-up company built around the free software and the full effect brought about by its crazy popularity (Ante 197,198). 19-year-old Shawn Fanning began writing the code so he could stop his roommates constant complaining about the unreliable MP3 search engines (Greenfeld, The Free Juke Box, 82). It took a true Internet kidto figure out that the way to do it was to allow anybody free and total access to everybody elses music collection (Levy 68). Download the program, free of charge, and simply type in the songs that are desired. Napster then lists whats available online in the MP3 format on thousands of hard drives. It then finds the selection on someone elses hard drive, and with a click of a button its downloaded onto your hard drive, and others can then download it from there (Levy 68). Napster is a program that should not be shut-down but supported because it enables people to search for and download songs that are no longer produced, available, or hard to find. Napster has made itself some powerful enemies in its short existence (Cohen 41). It has drawn the wrath of the record industry, whose suit charges the company launched a service that enables and facilitates piracy of music on an unprecedented scale (Brull 50). Piracy is defined by the World Book Dictionary as the act of publishing or using a book, play, musical composition, or the like, without permission (Barnhart). In fact, Napster does the exact opposite. It states so in its Napster, Inc. End-User Software License Agreement (Appendix A): The software integrated browser which, when used with the Napster service, is designed to enable musicians and music fans to locate audio recordings available in the MP3 formatAccordingly, you are responsible for complying with all applicable federal and state laws applicable to such content, including copyright laws. Napster respects copyright law and expects our users to do the same. Unauthorized copying, distribution, modification, public display, or public performance of copyrighted works is an infringement of the copyright holders rights. The above paragraph states the terms that Napster makes with its users. The terms state that Napster respects copyright laws and expects its users to do the same. A federal judge in New York ruled that a new service from MP3.com Inc. let people access their music from the Web and that had infringed on copyright laws (Brull 50). But what looked like a victory for the $14.6 billion record industry was only a skirmish in a war it is losing (Brull 50). The message has become quite clear: Courtroom victories wont save the Industry. Instead, the record companies should quickly create new business models that would allow consumers to organize their music on computers and send it over the net. So far, the big industry giants have been dragging their feet. They fear that surrendering control of music distribution would mean losing revenue and royalties (Brull 50). There are signs that the industry is finally moving. On April 28, for instance, Sony Music Entertainment Inc. began selling digitally delivered singles from Babyface, Pearl Jam, and two-dozen other artists at its Sonymusic.com site (Brull 50). And on May 2, Sony and Universal Music Group announced a joint venture to develop a subscription-based service over computers, cell phones, and set-up boxes. But these ventures are little more than baby steps. Sonys download service is a nonstarter because songs are priced at the same level as CD singles (Brull 50). Moreover, the system restricts users ability to transfer files to their own computer or to other digital devices such as MP3 players. Contrast that with Napster, which allows PC owners to share their music files that are stored on their hard drives over the Net (Brull