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Over the last year, the freewheeling exchange of music on the Internet has drawn the attention - and ire - of the music industry.

Music Explodes on the Web

By Robert O'Malley

When Damian Shiner recently performed with his band Shiner Jones at the Kendall Cafe in Cambridge, Mass., he wasn't just playing for the people in the audience.His music that night was also streaming on the Internet, thanks to technicians from RadioBoston.com who were recording the show for web radio.

That night you could also have visited the band's web site or clicked to their MP3.com web page to hear their music. Click again and you could have jumped to GarageBand.com, another fledgling music venue where aspiring musicians like Shiner go to promote their music.

Why this sudden explosion of music on the Internet? Much of it can be attributed to the development of the MP3 format, which now makes it possible to compress large sound and stream them on the Internet. Developed by the Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG), the MP3 (MPEG Layer 3) format allows Internet users to download near-CD quality music and audio from a growing number of web music sites. The availability of the MP3 format is changing the face of music and sending tremors through the recording industry.

Over the last year and a half, musicians and music-philes have been treated to the emergence of Web sites such as MP3.com, GarageBand.com, and EMusic.com where they can listen to songs and purchase MP3 recordings. There are also new Web radio stations which stream music throughout the day.

The emergence of the MP3 format has also led many people to start exchanging MP3 versions of songs they¹ve downloaded from the Internet or recorded from their CDs. On some college campuses, administrators have blocked student access to some music sites because MP3 downloads are overloading the universities¹ servers.

While the development of the MP3 format has made it possible for people with slow modem connections to download music and listen to it on their computers, the streaming technology still works best for users with high-end connections such as T1, DSL, or cable. For users with the slowest modem connections, streaming music is liable to break up or stall.

While a web radio station such as RadioBoston.com designs its site for users with a 30K modem or higher, it recommends using at least a 56K modem and a computer with a minimum of 64 MB of real memory. To hear music on these web radio stations also requires users to download an audio player such as Real Player G2.

Downloading music on the Web

As the MP3 format has become more popular, many people have started to create or purchase MP3 versions of songs on the Internet. At sites such as Emusic.com and MP3.com, you can purchase MP3 files of the music of both known and unknown musicians. At Emusic.com, for example, you can purchase and download an entire CD by a high-profile rock performer such as Elvis Costello.

To download music from the MP3 site or to hear music on Web radio stations, users first need to download a player.While most of the players are free or available in free demo versions, such versions often have fewer functions than the for-sale, full-featured ones. Many players can be downloaded at music or software developer web sites.

While downloading MP3s and playing them on a player is one way to listen to MP3s, you can also convert songs from your CDs to the MP3 format and listen to them on your computer or an MP3 player. When Shiner prepared his music for play on MP3.com, he says, he first had to convert the songs on his CD from a WAV file format to an AIF format. He then converted the AIFs to MP3s.

To create an MP3 version of a song from a CD version requires a separate "ripper" and "encoder" to produce the best -quality sound, though software is available that performs both functions. AudioCatalyst, Audio Grabber, and Streambox Ripper fall into this category. Software that combines a player, encoder, and ripper in one package includes MusicMatch and RealJukebox.

While the quality of MP3s is high, says Shiner, "it's not a perfect process right now because there's no standard."

The Recording Industry Reacts

Over the last year, the freewheeling exchange of music on the Internet has drawn the attention ­ and ire - of the music industry. In April, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that MP3.com violated the copyrights held by major record labels by allowing My.MP3.com users to upload their music to the MP3.com site and listen to it on the Internet.

As part of its My.MP3.com service, MP3.com allowed members to download special Beam-It software to convert their CD music to the MP3 format. The music was then stored on MP3.com's servers and made available to My.MP3.Com members, who could listen to it on their computers.

Since the judge's ruling on the suit, MP3.com and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) had been trying to reach an agreement that's amicable to both parties. MP3.com recently reached an agreement with BMG Entertainment and the Warner Music Group to license the music of their libraries. Under the deal, the record labels would receive a royalty each time a MP3.com user listened to one of their songs.

In a letter to My.MP3.com users earlier this year, Michael Robertson, MP3.com¹s chairman and CEO, said the company is "pursuing both a settlement of the copyright-infringement claims and an ongoing license agreement with all the major labels." He said, however, that MP3.com was suspending the Beam-It service and "voluntarily removing CDs from My.MP3.com."

"I want to emphasize that we are not shutting down the MyMP3.com service," Robertson told users. "For the time being, however, you will not be able to access any CDs you "beamed" to your account." He said that songs not affected by the judgment would still be available.

The Recording Industry of America has also filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Napster.com, an online service that allows users to download software that makes it possible to swap MP3 files. Shawn Fanning, a 19-year-old Northeastern University student, developed the software. In addition to Napster, people are using free software such as Gnutella to locate and swap MP3s over the Internet.

Napster had asked a federal judge to throw the case out of court on the ground that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) protected Napster's activities. Napster argued that it wasn¹t responsible for any piracy because the MP3 files its users were swapping never rested on its servers. Chief Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, however, rejected the Napster argument. Dr. Dre and the rock band Metallica have also sued Napster.

The Future of Music on the Web

Meg Smith, a lawyer and Fellow at Harvard Law School¹s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, notes that the recording industry wasn't concerned about copyright violations on the Internet until the development of the MP3 format. Before MP3, she says, it simply took too long to download the songs. "It wasn't likely that people would take three hours to download a song," she adds.

Smith said the current brand of piracy is different from earlier pre-digital versions because sound quality isn¹t diminished when digital music is copied. Digital technology now makes it possible to make high-qualityMP3 copies of songs that can be played on a growing number of MP3 players.

Smith suggested that it isn't surprising that the recording industry decided to go after MP3.com's Beam-It service. MP3.com, she says, couldn't verify who had purchased the CDs that its users were converting to MP3s. A user could have borrowed the CD from a friend and had it converted to the MP3 format for his or her own use on the Web. Smith suggested that Napster.com¹s decision to use as a defense provisions exempting certain groups from the requirements of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act probably wouldn't be successful in court.

"The right and wrong is pretty interesting," adds Smith, who believes that opinions vary on the MP3 pirating issue and tend to depend "on your particular point of view." Many people, she says, resent the established power of the record industry and believe they¹re being overcharged for CDs. It costs less than a $1 to manufacture a CD, but consumers are being charged $16 or $17 for them. Artists, she notes, never see most of that money.

Although a number of artists have sued Napster, others, such as the rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy, are unfazed by the trading of MP3s on the Internet. The popular rock band the Grateful Dead has always allowed fans to make bootleg recordings of their shows.

"It's going to be very exciting to watch how this plays out," says Smith, who speculates that the music industry may eventually develop technical strategies to stop the pirating. The popularity of MP3 and the Internet as a musical venue may eventually push the music industry to start selling music on the Web, she says.

In the meantime, the Internet is fast becoming a major tool for aspiring musicians who want to get their music out to a broader audience. Shiner, however, notes that easy access and more music also means more competition. "There are so many songs posted now, there¹s less potential for the random user to get access to your song," he says.

Still, he adds, the music explosion on the Web is a positive development for both musicians and the public, even if it means stiff competition and the pirating of some musicians¹ work. If people were copying and exchanging his songs, he adds, he¹d view it as a sign that his music was reaching more people.

"At this stage of our career I'd be thrilled by it," he says. "To me it's more about making the music than making money."