Kristina Halmai Halmai page 1

Professor Cross

English 305

May 3, 2001

Controversy is the term most often used when referring to the company Napster. For myself, an unsavvy computer user, Napster is an online recording service that enables a member to download individual songs by various artists. Membership is required to join the on-line community though the required information is limited and can be falsified without penalty. All that I know about Napster now, I learned from an MTV interview of under 21-year-old music millionaires.

The origin of Napster is rooted in a college dorm room by a freshman named Shawn Fanning. Because Mr. Fanning was discontent with his roommate's choice of music, he began to explore the idea of creating a computer music file sharing system so as to introduce his new friend to a wider range of musical choices. For some time, Fanning's idea was small scale only reaching a select college audience. The college age crowd enjoyed the swapping so much that soon enough word spread and his idea of unrestricted music trading had taken off without him even realizing it. Soon after realizing the potential of his endeavor, Shaun left college to put all his effort into his growing empire. While this was well received among the Fanning's college brethren, the artists themselves were unhappy with the act of trading copywritten music without permission. The artists and their record labels were in fact quite bothered that they were losing potential royalties.

Several well known artists have gone so far as to make public outcries and take the matter to court. There have been several highly publicized in which bands are trying to receive the royalties that they believe Napster owes them. One such man in particular is Lars Ulrich, the drummer from Metallica. He expressed in a congressional hearing that Napster is denying his band and other artists of due royalties. Another artists leading the battle against Napster is Dr. Dre. He told MTV in an interview that "Napster is straight up stealing my money."

While many artists are against Napster, many also support it. Don Henley and Alannis Morrisset spoke in support of it in a congressional hearing earlier this year. Other bands have come out in support of it, including the Dave Matthews Band, Phish, and Wide Spread Panic. Last month the Dave Matthews Band released its first single off of it new album to Napster because they knew it was going to end up on it anyway.

It was at this crucial point that I believe I started to pay attention to this issue of music piracy. I have been to concerts where friends of mine bring hi tech microphones and digital audio recorders (DATs) to record their favorite bands. Once on tape, these small but tight knit groups of fans distribute the "shows" as they refer to them, to one another. Having received a copy or two of some good shows, I am in favor of music piracy.

If an artist or band is good, I will buy the music and the concert tickets. The extra goodies that come with bootleg copies is the variety that becomes

Available. Most people enjoy the radio version of a song. All artists, however play that same song hundreds of times live and each time it varies. A true fan would love to be present for all of those variations, but are unable. The copies simply provide fans with the ability to artificially attend the performances. Ten different copies of my favorite song are better than one.

In writing the I search paper, the Internet has been my primary research tool. Because the Napster issue is such a high profile topic, there is an abundance of information available. In fact, the amount of information is so much, it was crucial to sort through and choose what I feel is most reliable and relevant and of course interesting. Additionally, a majority of the information eventually begins to repeat itself in terms of the copyright controversy and the ensuing court battle and final ruling.

While browsing the Internet for Napster sites, my primary focus was on finding credible news sites. I chose articles that have authors and dates and posting dates and I avoided articles that are based on the author's personal opinion, hearsay, and speculation. Due to the fact that Napster is such a controversial issue, unfortunately many of the articles on the Internet lay within this unaccountable category. However, the Internet is also filled with numerous accountable sources. Some of the first online sources I targeted are CNN, MTV News, and Time magazine.

Being a music based company and faithful to journalistic integrity, MTV has a plethora of valuable Napster information. The information provided by MTV, are the basic facts with the special addition of artists' opinions. A majority of the available information focuses on the artists themselves and their different opinions on illicit music trading. The interviews are valuable, as the artists are the creators of the music and ultimately should be able to decide whether or not they wish to be apart of Napster.

CNN, a traditional news network, focuses more on the politics surrounding the Napster issue. CNN articles primarily focus on the court hearings and rulings and on the Napster technology. There are numerous links on each page that can take the user to other articles; it was at times overwhelming. It is on a CNN page that I found the most reader friendly description of the actual technology. I appreciated the visual diagram as it is for the layperson, and now I understand the process when one logs on to Napster.

A few months back, I recall that Time arrived to our home and the cover story was on Napster and its pioneer Shawn Fanning. I decided it would benefit me to locate that particular issue on line. Time.com allows for archive searches, which is where I found the October 2,2000 issue of Time featuring Napster. After some searches down the wrong paths, and a broken lamp (searching from home is comfortable but the dogs are running wild), I found and printed the story.

I have also decided to go to the source of the controversy and try it out for myself. .

Conveniently enough, I have consulted an attorney on the copyright issues surrounding Napster. While reaching Mr. Dan F. Trammell was simple writing quickly enough was challenging. He did however provide me with interesting and helpful information all in a total of thirteen minutes. I also found Internet World magazine and PC Magazine on line and retrieved some useful information from both sources as well.

As I previously mentioned, the research process was not as challenging as some of my previous research endeavors as far as spending tedious hours in the library finding old books and scholarly journal articles. It is definitely nice to search from the comforts of my own home and computers. The challenge in this research came in sorting through the information, as the subject is extremely rich in literature.

Shawn Fanning had been hearing complaints about how difficult it was to find good music on the net. The complaints sparked an idea and the college drop out worked tirelessly to make it a reality. In three months time, then eighteen year old Fanning produced his idea of a program that would allow computer users to swap music files with one another directly without going through a centralized middleman or file server. He taught himself Windows programming and Unix server codes so that the zero's and one's, the Windows API protocols and Unix server commands transformed into the software on his Dell notebook. The result is the music file-sharing program called Napster (Greenfield 2000).

The Napster service allows users to easily trade music encoded in the MP3 format. MP3, short for Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer 3, is an audio data compression format. It compresses recordings into small and portable files without sacrificing quality, and allows for them to be sent over the Internet (McCarthy 1999). In using Napster, the process is quite simple. First I enter the music I desire into the program's search engine. My computer then searches other computers on the Internet running the Napster program and tries to find people with the song I am looking for. I then select a computer, usually based on their connection speed, and transfer the music to my computer. I can even find out if other users have similar tastes as I do and search throughout their entire personal MP3 collection. Napster has published a disclaimer on its web site that says copying or distributing unauthorized MP3 files may violate U.S. and foreign copyright, adding that compliance with the law is the responsibility of the end-user (Napster Inc.).

Napster has come to represent the entangled intersection where commerce, culture, and the First Amendment are converging. Federal copyright laws were designed to protect print, film, and records, all of which were then difficult to duplicate. Copyright law is not equipped to deal with technology. A few years back the duplication of compact disks was difficult because it required CD burners, today most people with a computer have the technology. "It is now so simple to make copies of nearly everything, except for smell, that technology has outstripped the law. In terms of Napster, the cats gone out of the house and no one can get him back in"(Trammell 2001).

On behalf of five media companies, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed suit against Napster Inc. of violating federal and state laws through "contributory and vicarious copyright infringement" in the U.S. District Court in Northern California (McCarthy 1999). The most powerful recording companies represented by RIAA include: Seagram Co. Ltd.'s Universal Music, Bertelsmann AG's BMG, Sony Corp.'s Sony Music and AOL Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Music Group and EMI Group Plc. RIAA claims that the web site and Fanning's program are facilitating the widespread theft and dissemination of intellectual property.

More recently, individual artists have targeted the company in a lawsuit claiming copyright infringement. The artists include Metallica and rapper Dr. Dre. The companies and the stars want users to stop sharing the files over Napster.