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Napster and its children are proving to be tough, flexible beasts By
Stephanie Bull
The biggest musical interface to hit college campuses has taken a new twist. Napster, once the only easy way to download MP3 music files with a searchable index and ways to "hotlist" specific users, has started an interesting trend. Many new databases have sprung up claiming to offer the same services as Napster with the same quality and speed. Consumers want variety, and college students are the cream of the crop when it comes to cost-benefit analysis. Whatever they can get for cheap, regardless of quality, usually gets first priority. Quality used to be the big issue when it came to choosing between to purchasing an audio CD or downloading the MP3. High CD prices and editing by chain stores has helped contribute to the high number of people using the Internet to get music instead. What started out as a small research project intended for any type of file sharing, became the starting point for a revolution. Napster is a web-based program available for free download to its subscribers. Once online, the subscriber can exchange music files, called MP3s, with any other subscriber. An MP3 is a compressed file format of a song once downloaded to a computer from an Audio CD. MP3s have been available on the Internet for free download for about five years. The major record companies own the copyrights to many of the songs available for download on Napster. These record companies assume the copyright because of the current law saying these works have been made for hire and are protected once they are in a tangible form. Of course the major record companies would want compensation for their copyrighted works when these works are used for any reason, including just for storage on a hard drive. Napster has been a dramatic case in the courts because of the difficulty in proving that Napster's founders have broken any laws in setting up the service, or whether each individual user is breaking copyright laws. Many students at Utah State University use the computer labs on campus to download MP3s because of the high speed of access. In just a few minutes, Napster can be downloaded and the songs come quickly after. There is also a CD burner on campus for free use, though most students have yet to find it. The burner is in the UR Graphics lab, and is guarded by a large sign saying that copyright violations are the users' problem, not the lab's. Tara Bawden, a student and computer lab user, says that in about two hours she can download enough MP3s to make an 18-song CD. "There is no way to keep people from finding MP3s online; it's just too easy and there are too many routes to take," she said. The lastest court ruling in the Napster case has given requirements of implementing a filtering system to remove songs on a list given to Napster officials by record companies. This system is supposed to block a file from becoming available after a search. A federal court injunction issued March 5 has been hard to implement, says Napster, but the filters are getting better. Many users have adapted to the changes by misspelling the names of songs or artists to be able to find the song they are looking for. Jupiter Media Matrix, an online research group, says Napster users are down by 20 percent. "Twelve million people used the Napster application in March, down from 15 million in February." Since the rulings that Napster must stop its copyright infringements, recent court proceedings have seen Napster CEO Hank Barry ask for a compulsory license. This would be similar to the one that allows radio stations to broadcast copyrighted songs and cable companies to transmit copyrighted television shows. This license would require Internet companies to have a set price for the songs, mandated by Congress or the Copyright Office. Many people do not think government price-fixing works. But Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford University law professor, says, "This . . . would give innovators the freedom to build new distribution technologies. The content would be free, not in the sense of free beer, but in the sense of free speech." There are many other ways to get MP3s off the Internet. Because of Napster's recent troubles, other sites are finding more and more popularity and subscribers. One example, BearShare.com, is relatively new. It models itself after Napster with searchable files. Ed Davenport, a USU computer lab consultant, says the loss of popular songs off Napster is not really affecting him. He says that most songs he is interested in are available on Excite.com or any other engine just by searching for the artist or song title. Professor Kendra Dinerstein of USU's computer science department speaks of the moral issues involved with Napster. She says that if everyone would just sample the service and then buy the CD, the record companies would probably be OK with it. But, she thinks that not everyone is trustworthy. "This is how most ethical people would react to the free service. Unfortunately you can*t trust everyone to just download the music and then go out and buy the CD." She said that most people were not that ethical. "People who own rights to songs are going to be cheated by people who are unethical." Overall, Napster users have proven themselves adaptable. They are, after all, mostly college students. If college students can adapt to ramen noodles and a mattress on the floor after Mom's home cooking and a feather bed, they can certainly find a way around Napster's federal injunction.
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