Everything You Wanted to Know About Napster
As the world grows and the Internet becomes a more intricate part of our lives, every aspect of our culture will essentially be cybrized. In today's world it is possible for any person with access to a computer and the Internet to live their entire lives and need not to ever leave the security of their home (like Sandra Bullock in The Net). Any and everything can be ordered and purchased on the net, and delivered directly to your home without complications….even the mail! Computers are also drawing the attention of the younger crowds with the invention of e-mail, instant messaging and programs where it is possible to download music for free such as Napster. Napster enables any person to log on and begin to search for music according to title or artist, or a search as general as soundtracks.
Napster has many parts and details that are not obvious to the average user. I plan to illustrate the actual processes of Napster and what makes it tick, what exactly MP3's are and how they work. I will also address the type of technology Napster uses, peer-to-peer, all about the founder of Napster, Shawn Fanning, the music industry versus technology, the legal matters of the Napster trial, and the issue of piracy. With in the legal matters I will address the bases of the lawsuit, the original copyright laws, the hearing, and the appeal. Lastly, I will talk about the many sites for and against Napster.
How Does Napster Work and why is it Such a Big Deal?
Napster, aside from any assumptions, is not a housing devise for MP3 files; it is simply a means to distribute the MP3 files that have already been uploaded onto a users computer. Using a program such as Napster, a user enters their search and Napster searches it's database for the material requested by the user. It is Napster's job to locate another user on the Internet who has the material being search for and to make the connection between the two PC's. Napster does not store the music anywhere. (Fanning) Instead it uses a technology called peer-to-peer which will be discussed later. Napster is also a great way to make your own mix of your favorite songs and a great way for a rising star to make their music accessible to the public using the MP3 format. The MP3 files are a great way to store many files onto a computer using very little space, but at the same time having a lot of information.
Individuals are not as worried about copyright rules as much as businesses are which means that any song that an individual user took the time to convert into the MP3 format can be downloaded for free by their next door neighbor, or someone half way around the world. The fact that it is so easy for an individual to access, and its' speed is amazing has made the Napster site even more appealing.
Napster is used by a wide variety of people and the most common users seemed to be college students. (Fanning) Napster is very common on college campuses because colleges have access to some of the fastest systems available, college students are generally poor and will save money almost any way possible, and because they are very comfortable with the MP3 technology. Therefore it is very alluring.
Despite how appealing it seems Napster has many downsides as well. Everyone is in business to make money, right? Napster is cheating the right of the music industry and artists to make their money by offering what the RIAA (the Recording Industry Association of America) is selling for free. If sites like Napster are allowed to continue it is possible that eventually they will also allow the free download of movies and music videos from sites like Scour. Scour, specifically, has filed for bankruptcy, but there are many other companies that offer these downloads. Directors and film companies often spend millions of dollars on movies and need to be salaried for their time and effort. However, if the programs such as Napster offer the films online for free, the film industry will not be compensated for the monies that it spends, and therefore lose money and eventually go out of business. If that did happen, there wouldn't be any movies to offer on the web. The same is true for everything else that is copyrighted such as books, paintings, television shows, etc. Napster and sites like it, if evolved into what they are estimated to become, would turn out hurting themselves more than gaining a commodity because of the huge loss that will be taken as a result of the attempt to receive something for free.
"There is no such thing as a free lunch"
MP3's
MP3 is an acronym for MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) audio Layer-3. An MP3 is a compression algorithm for digital information in order to have it stored in a personal computer using as little space as possible. The process of converting CD's (compact discs) into MP3 files reduces the amount of information taken form the CD and cuts it down from 32Mbytes to about 3Mbytes using scientific knowledge, which is about 10 times less space than before. Here is a little bit of math:
Therefore a CD stores a huge number if bits for each second of music:
44,100 samples/second x 16 bites/sample x 2 channels=1,411,200 bite/second. (Levine)
Science has proven that CD's contain sounds that the human ear cannot hear, sound that the human ear can hear better that others, and that if two sounds are playing simultaneously the human ear hears the louder one, but cannot hear the softer one. Using this information, researchers made a compression algorithm using the perceptual noise shaping technique. This technique allows the MP3 to get rid of the parts of the song that are not absolutely necessary in relaying the music to the listeners' ear. Now, the MP3 is "near CD quality." (This just means that information was taken from the original song and broken down into a condensed, similar file.) The change is so small that the average listener will not notice a difference in the quality of the music they are listening to.
Portable MP3's
Music technology has changed so much that it is now possible to buy an MP3 player and take you miniature music with you. Portability allows the user to download any song he/she wishes and take it with them. These devices are lightweight, pocket-sized, and skip proof. The MP3 player does not skip because it does not have moving parts, like a CD. Therefore you can hit it or drop with out missing a beat.
The MP3 players support different kinds of compression/decompression schemes called codecs. It is possible that not all players will play all kinds of schemes, which means that your player must be able to make upgrades, or add memory or MB cards. There are different kinds of MP3 players and different players are capable of different upgrades. Also the program that the user gets his/her music from online must be compatible to their player.
P-2-P, What is That?
Peer-to peer technology (P2P) is a different way of networking. Instead of computers running through a central server, the computers are able to communicate with each other directly. This fairly new concept has been referred to as the next generation of the Internet.
There are many benefits to using P2P technology, but the main one is that computers will not be limited to web pages any more. They, the computers, will be able to directly contact the personal computer it wishes to exchange information with in a shorter time than before, without the middle man. In addition to the speed increase peer-to-peer technology will have better security, reliability, and availability of content than the client-sever model. Although the recent acknowledgement of peer-to-peer technology was attributed mostly to the free exchange of music with sites such as Napster and iMesh, it has several other promising uses. A new company called Centrata, which is a peer-to-peer network, is in the process of making a name for itself. It was founded by three MIT graduates, one of whom is Boris Pevzner, and is based in Menlo Park. Using a peer-to-peer program such as Napster only allows a user to view a limited number of users at a time. Out of the 1 million users online, a request may only be sent to 10,000 users, even if the user has a higher speed connection, such as DSL. Using Centrata, the user will be able to see every other user of the network, which means that if a user is looking for a file and someone out there has it, the user will be able to find it using Centrata. The main example of a peer-to-peer application is e-mail. When e-mail is sent now, it must go through a central system. But, using peer-to-peer the message will be able to be sent directly to recipient.
Centrata is being forced to face a few main obstacles before it is accepted widely. Two main examples are bandwidth and platform security confidence, which Pevzner considers to be short-term. The bandwidth problem is almost taking care of itself. People who own computers are beginning to switch over to faster systems such as DSL. The security issue, Pevzner predicts the trust will be earned by peer-to-peer technology just as people slowly but surely began to trust the Internet when it first got started.
Founder of Redpoint Ventures of Menlo Park, Tom Haley, is also taking an interest in P2P. He believes "peer-to-peer has the potential for a lot of different applications."
Not Just Your Ordinary Computer Nerd
Shawn Fanning grew up in Massachusetts and lived in Harwich during his high school years. His uncle, John Fanning, gave him his first computer and access to the Internet. While at first Shawn loved sports the computer and the Internet fascinated him, and before long gave up sports to spend more of his free time learning about programming.
Fanning attended Northeastern University as a freshman in the fall of 1998 intending to major in computer science. According to Fanning his entry level classes were too easy, so he began writing his own Windows-based program. Fanning frequently visited IRC (Internet Relay Chat) rooms to get information and advise from the experienced programmers that hang out there. IRC is a network of people organized into communities, through real time channels, on various topics including programming and Internet security. "Napster" was Shawn's nickname, user name for the IRC, and his e-mail address.
Shawn and his roommate both enjoyed listening to MP3's on the computer, but they knew that the sites where they downloaded the MP3's had problems. So, Fanning decided to try to write his own program to make MP3's, because they were more condensed, more accessible. He wanted to write a program that was unique to any other search engine. He first wanted to use the peer-to-peer technology so that the search wouldn't get lost or lead to dead ends. He also wanted the users of his site to be able to share whatever information they wanted to share, giving them the option to share nothing. His system would also be updated every time someone logged on to or off of his system. Anyone using the sites would be able to see all users and what the specific users were sharing. According to his visions the site would enable the uses to instant message any user that was online at the time, and chat about music, or get to know someone new that the user had something in common with. The main goal of this project was to have a program similar to the IRC that would allow users to learn from each other and have ongoing relationships, which gave users genuine opportunity for participation, interaction, and individual involvement.
Shawn's first goal was to develop a "proof concept". He did not want to utilize the program, at the beginning. After the first semester at Northeastern, Shawn made the decision to leave school and work even harder at developing his program. Soon after, Shawn began sending the software prototype to his friends who sent it to their friends. In Napster's first phases Fanning's friends would let him know about the little glitches here and there, and he would fix them. Slowly, he was forming what was soon to be downloaded onto almost every computer everywhere, Napster, in its' final stage. In September of 1999, Fanning and his uncle John raised money from investors, and formed Napster, Inc.
The Music Industry vs. Technology
Although Napster has saved several people a lot of money, it still has a few glitches, or problems if you will. A person with a slower computer that has no choice but to download cable files, which take a little longer than files such as T1's, might view Napster as a waste of time, especially when the song does not come out good. The quality of the music on Napster will always be a problem because amateurs download most of the music.
The best way for the RIAA and the recording labels to compete with Napster is to compete with the opposing sides. For example, Pearl Jam is going to release 25 "Live" CDs simultaneously in order to compete with the bootleggers that are selling the live CDs for $50 each.
At first sight Napster seems to be a way that artists are being cheated. When in all actuality, the artist doesn't make the bulk of their money from the records that they sell, but from the concert tickets and the merchandising sales that they acquire. The labels are trying to claim that they are protecting their artists, but really the artists are not the ones losing money, the label is. The Industry is making a false statement when they say that they are trying to protect their artists.
Napster's Legal Problems
The main argument against Napster is the copyright laws, and the United States has had those laws to protect the ownership rights of creators of expressive works such as fiction, music, and art. The first copyright law was passed in 1790, and these laws are now currently spelled out in the Copyright Act of 1976, which is an extremely confusing and intricate document.
Facts about copyright
In the past there have been a few copyright related lawsuits and the most influential one to the Napster case was the music industry against the Sony Corporation. The music industry claimed that Sony was in violation of the copyright laws because they produced a tape, the Betamax video, which allowed people to participate in copyright infringement by allowing them to record shows on television and watch them later. In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled that "time shifting," taping movies to watch later, was not a violation of copyright. Another case in 1992 introduced the Audio Home Recording Act, which allowed people to make their own personal copies of music for their own personal use. This Act passed by Congress was in response to the invention of digital cassette tapes, just before the Internet revolution. The law also insured that consumers would not be sued for copyright infringement for making "noncommercial" copies of recordings for their personal use. In 1998, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in order to keep up with technology and the digital environment. An important part of that act was that people were prevented from evading password-protected sites, which contained creative works, such as art, and music.
The Napster case is also relevant to free speech and fair use. The First Amendment is supposed to protect people from governmental intrusion into what they speak, think, write, or act. If someone wanted to, they could read into the copyright laws as restricting a person from those freedoms by making the public pay for the right to use creative material.
The hearing
The Napster case received a lot of publicity, because of it's wide spread use by millions of people around the world who use Napster quite frequently. It is estimated that almost 800,000 people use Napster simultaneously every day. There are also a wide variety of users. Shawn Fanning once received e-mail from a 91-year old man. The lawsuit began in December and was flied by the RIAA against Napster, Inc. The RIAA claimed that Napster "encouraged the illegal copying and distribution of copyright music on a massive scale." The Napster case is said to be a deciding factor for the future of the Internet. If Napster does win thee case it will have paved the way for programs like it. The Napster case raises issues of freedom of information, activity on the Internet, and what copyright protections artists have in cyberspace. However, experts say that Napster will not be the starting point for a new law.
The hearing for the Napster case was held on Wednesday, July 26, 2000 in San Francisco, California. U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel stated that "Napster is enjoined from copying or assisting or enabling or contributing to the copy or duplication of all copyrighted songs and musical compositions of which the plaintiffs hold rights." The ruling handed the recording industry its first major case against Internet piracy. Napster's attorney was trying very hard to fight his case, but the judge was being very critical. Patel decided that the plaintiff's had enough evidence to fight their case. In accordance to a court order, Napster was going to be shut down at 3am EDT on Saturday, July 29, 2000 if the request for an appeal was denied. Another order was also given; "the RIAA was to post a $5 million bond to compensate Napster for lost business should Napster eventually prevail in the case." The main problem with Napster is that it has its files sent through a central server, which constitutes as a peer-to-peer network, but allows for someone to be sued. If the RIAA wanted to further press their views on piracy, they would have to sue individuals, which is highly unlikely. The programs Gnutella and Freenet are peer-to-peer networks that allow the users to exchange information directly from their own computers, and not through a central system, which prevents them form being sued for the same reasons as Napster. If a lawsuit were to come from the use of either of these programs it would require the suits to be against individuals. Scour, however, has already had a lawsuit filled against it.
The attorney for Napster, David Boies, who was also the lawyer who represented the Justice Department in the antitrust case against Microsoft, found himself having several difficulties in court. Patel shot down several of the Napster key defense arguments. She stated that "the potential for noninfringing uses of Napster is minimal and that the commercial and substantial purpose of the site is to copy popular music. Piracy be damned was pretty much the sense one gets from reading some of the early (Napster documents). Isn't that the guts of Napster is all about…essentially a system created to facilitate the download of music?" In response Boies stated, "the Audio Home Recording Act explicitly allows copying for personal use" and he cited two earlier cases RIAA vs. Diamond Multimedia Systems and Sony Corporation vs. Universal Studios. Both cases were filed because they were thought to be in violation of the copyright laws and they were both dismissed. "Napster has made several attempts to establish a rapprochement with the record industry, saying that it wants to respect copyrights and work with the labels. But so far, the gap between the two sides' views of what is legal and acceptable has proved unbridgeable."
The Appeal
On Friday, July 28, 2000 two federal appeals court judges gave Napster, Inc. permission to remain online until the case goes to trial; a date has not yet been set. It is possible, however, for the Recording Industry Association of America to appeal the decision to let Napster remain online. The RIAA President, Hilary Rosen, made a comment about the last-minute reprieve. Rosen stated, "We remain confident that the (9th U.S. Circuit) Court will ultimately affirm once it has had an opportunity to review the facts and the law. It is frustrating, of course, that the tens of millions of daily (copyright) infringements occurring on Napster will be able to continue, at least temporarily." Hank Barry, CEO of Napster said, "We are gratified and appreciative." Napster's founder, Shawn Fanning, said he was, "grateful that we do not have to turn away our 20 million users." Fanning is also encourages his users to "buycott." This means to buy the CD's of the artists who are in favor of, and support Napster.
The next step for the RIAA, if they do not decide to appeal, is to go to either the full 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court.
Napster can be viewed on two totally different spectrums. On one side it can be one of the greatest inventions brought into this great, free world. On the other hand it is considered "a monster," said Judge Patel. (Napster wins reprive…) This case is going to be considered a turning point in the history of music. If the RIAA wins, it may mean the end of Napster, but on a larger scale, there will never be an end to the free downloading of music on the Internet. However, if Napster wins it is only going to mean the starting point for a lot of other sites like it to flourish, and become common knowledge to the poor college student who cannot afford to buy CD's, the parent filtering their child's music, and the wide spread acknowledgement of new artists.
What Exactly is Piracy?
The main argument against Napster is the copyright issue that is being turned into and labeled as piracy. The formal definition of piracy is the unauthorized use of another's production, invention, or conception especially in infringement of a copyright. Napster has been accused of both piracy and copyright violations. Shawn Fanning, Napster's founder, wanted Napster to be able to benefit the artists. Many people have told him that using Napster had led them to buy more CD's because they have a chance to sample the music they were going to buy. Also, new artists have a greater chance of being heard sooner because they do not have to go through a big label to have their music heard.
Sites For and Against Napster
There are many Internet sites out there that state certain opinions about Napster such as NapsterSucks.cjb.net and SaveNapster.com. It is, and always was, obvious that the public would have mixed feelings about the legality of providing a free service that others are forced to pay for. There are always two sides to every story and the Napster issue is no exception.
The site opposed to Napster, specifically, NapsterSucks.cjb.net simply states the downsides to Napster; the fact that the user and have their transfer interrupted and that they are forced to share their music. It is really easy to fix both of the problems stated, the fact is that the author of the site simply harbors negative feelings for the site because his less than pleasant experience.
On the other hand, the site in favor of Napster, SaveNapster.com, is trying to promote Napster on a different scale. It is showing the different ways Napster can be changed and modified in order to accommodate the user more easily.
It is clear that we are now living in a technologically advanced world and with that comes music technology. With the introduction of MP3's and CD burners, the music world will never be the same. Napster is just one of the many examples of how the world and our culture will forever be changed by the Internet revolution. Napster and all of it's components will continue to be explored and updated as technology becomes more advanced, and nothing will be able to stop it or sites like it.
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