3EB's Perspective on Napster

NT: As far as I know, the idea that Napster is trying to sell is that it's going to move toward a subscription model, where someone would pay $20 a month for access to it.
SJ: There's a buck in it for Napster down the line. That's what makes me think Napster is full of shit. The guys at Napster, first of all, are corporate heads, and if they've got lip rings or not, it doesn't make them cool to me, it makes them corporate fat cats. I think they've got $25 million in capitalization, so to me they're just a bunch of other multinational corporate leaders who are pulling a scam. I'm all for pulling a scam, but I'm not for people pulling a scam when they're guys throwing up a peace sign saying, "Hey man, music should be free. I happen to have $25 million in capitalization, but music should be free." Because I think milk should be free. I also think the water you're drinking should be free, and so should your shirt. But it's not. I also don't want Napster, I don't want Chevron, I don't want AOL, I don't want Elektra, or any other multinational corporation with lots of money to decide for me what I'm going to do with my music. Our music company is designed to fuck us. That's how they are set up, that's what they're built to do. They get 90%, we get 10%. We do most of the work, and they spread that out. That's how it's set up, but at least they ask us, at least they ask our permission. Napster has never asked our permission. Those guys have got plenty of bank. We have one of the biggest records of the year. It's sold about 1.5 million copies, but it's got about 3 million downloads. And critics will go, "Well, it's not doing as well as the last record." It's doing far better than the last record, it's just that we're a huge Napster band. The other thing I hate about Napster is that (it claims to be) for the people and it's a free speech thing. Well, it's for the people, as long as they're white people, as long as they're >male people, and as long as they're college people. Because that's who's downloading the music: white, male college students. That's who's doing it. That's who's got the speed of equipment and the access to equipment to do it.

TF: I think the problem is going to be that if a hacker can break into the Pentagon, I think he can certainly find a way to get around a watermark. I don't know how they're going to figure out how to put such a tight lid on it that somebody's not going to figure out how to break it.