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Napster R.I.P.?
Rob WalkerPosted Thursday, July 27, 2000, at 3:05 PM ETWednesday's ruling by a California judge that Napster must shut down its popular music-file-swapping feature has caused a lot of teeth-gnashing. Could this be the end, so soon, of the so-called "peer-to-peer" craze?
As a person who buys a fair number of CDs, I'm as attracted as anyone to the idea of technology like Napster's. It's an incredibly clever and impressive creation. I completely understand, and even empathize with, people who are sick of bloated CD prices. And I even get the attraction to the revolutionary, cut-out-the-useless-middleman rhetoric that surrounds the peer-to-peer notion: Even if Napster goes down, the tech revolutionaries promise, successor companies such as Gnutella will ensure that file-swapping, without the annoying "friction" created by the current recording industry apparatus, will continue unabated. Two points are supposed to follow from this. One, repeated almost constantly by an army of self-styled contrarians from the very second that Napster first appeared, is that the recording industry is toast. And two is that there is nothing it can do via the courts to stop a Gnutella-like foe, whose technology works in such a way that there is nothing to shut down.
But is either of those points really true? If file-swapping continues, does it follow that the recording industry collapses? I still don't think so. There have been conflicting reports as to whether Napster's popularity caused people to buy more or fewer CDs, but even if it's the latter, the negative effect has been pretty small. And it's worth remembering that videocassettes didn't wipe out the movie business--nor did they cause the price of movie tickets to fall.
I'm also not so sure that the record industry wouldn't be able to do anything about Gnutella-type technology. I don't know what the Gnutella creators' plans are, but anyone trying to make money using a Gnutella variation would have to create some of that "friction" that the peer-to-peer revolutionaries complain about. After all, Napster's ultimate goal isn't really to eliminate the middleman, Napster's goal is to be the middleman, and to make a lot of money as a result. (It's never been clear to me how they would do this, and to date Napster has not earned a penny.)
If Gnutella or any similar outfit intends to make money, it will have to introduce some friction to the process; and if any firm ends up earning profits by making it easy for other people to circumvent copyright law, it doesn't seem that it would be all hard to go after that firm in the courts. So, it may be right that it is impossible to stop technology that allows people to swap digital files. But what if it also turns out to be prohibitively difficult to profit from that technology, at least without getting the copyright owners on board? In other words, what if the technology lived on, but no one ever made any money off it? That would certainly be revolutionary. And it might even be fine with some of the revolutionaries writing the impressive programs that make it all possible. But I'm not sure how investors betting on peer-to-peer as a business trend would feel about it.
Reader Response from The Fray:
It doesn't surprise me that a significant fraction of the human race will engage in theft when there is little or no chance of being caught. After all, illegal cable converter boxes are ubiquitous, and we've all seen footage of mobs looting storefronts during blackouts, riots, or natural disasters. So naturally I'm not at all surprised that hordes of high school and college kiddies have no compunction about abrogating intellectual property rights by using Napster to trade pirated music.
What does surprise me are the howls of moral outrage that many of the aforementioned Napster kiddies are letting out, now that the site which has facilitated their criminal actions is coming under legal attack. The sense of entitlement that these freeloaders exhibit is amazing. In "defense" of their thievery, many of the sponges whine about how much money "greedy" artists and record companies are taking from them, as if someone were holding a gun to their head and forcing them to buy music. Others toss in irrelevancies like the claim that Napster ultimately helps, rather than hurts, legitimate music sales; whether or not this is the case, evidently the freeloaders don't believe that the creators and owners of intellectual property have the right to promote their copyrighted works however they see fit (whether or not this includes giving it away).
I've always felt that a self-righteous freeloader is one of the lowest forms of scum. I just didn't know that there were so many of them around.
--Rob Leder
(To reply, click
here.)
How can so many college kids be so dumb?
Fact: A majority of the users of Napster aren't professional musicians.
Fact: Copyright infringement is a law, and laws don't care if you want to hear the music first or are too cheap to buy it.
Fact: If any of Napsters "users" were professional musicians who depend on royalties to sustain themselves, they wouldn't be so quick to back such a rip-off situation. And if you still don't comprehend how copyrights and royalties work, pretend you're a salesperson who only gets paid by commission. You sell and sell and sell and someone else gets your paycheck.
--Candyman
(To reply, click
here.)
I'll take a wild guess that Napster fanatics were thrilled when the DOJ put the smackdown on Microsoft right? Admit it, your liberal minds were rapt with glee when the legal team, sponsored by the federal government, came in and claimed it was in the interests of the consumer for one of America's greatest business success stories to be torn apart. Good news for fans of irony--one of the key prosecutors in the Microsoft case is defending Napster in their current battle. This is the same guy whose portion of the case focused around Microsoft's idea to give away Internet Explorer, claiming that it was ruining competition and market forces.
--KCDixie
(To reply, click
here.)
To Rob Walker: Allow me to finish one of your sentences for you: "I completely understand, and even empathize with, people who are sick of bloated CD prices"--so I guess I'll just steal them.
--William D.Ayers
(To reply, click
here.)
The point of the article was that no money will be made from peer-to-peer networks without invoking the wrath of the courts. Point well-made. The fact is, most of the other "companies" committed to making peer-to-peer possible are not trying to make money. In truth, they are not setting out to be corporate entities. As the author of one of the Gnutella-type programs recently attested, "This is not a company. The software is released and used, but those objecting to it find that there is nothing [corporate] to litigate against." This brand of "non-trepreneur" sees freedom of information, not money, as their motivator. Subverting the dominant paradigm is a nice extra. Scour.com and others seeking to profit will indeed find the copyright infringement highway a tough one to navigate. In the end, a user-friendly alternative to Napster will likely emerge and dominate the peer-to-peer landscape. Will it kill off record companies? Not a chance, though they'll have to rethink their business model quite a bit.
--John Mitchell
(To reply, click
here.)
Mr Walker refers to Gnutella as a "company" and an "outfit" and states they will need to make money. In reality, Gnutella is simply software. It wasn't made by a company--it was made by an individual. It was briefly released to the Internet for a time until that individual's company removed all traces. Yet Gnutella survives. It allows people to connect to each other without anything in the middle. And that is why it has certain parties concerned.
--Vondoom
(To reply, click
here.)
I propose this to Napster, the recording industry, and the musicians and artists. Allow Napster to continue but have Napster generate and earn income from selling advertising space for the artists, records, music stores, etc. Also, they are also paid in the form of so many hits a day, week, month by the recording industry and other sponsors. The artists and the recording industry gain monetary profits for each song/file that is copied or transferred from user to user. Napster takes a little slice but the biggest slices of the pie go to the artists and recording industries. Same also could be said for special downloads of up-and-coming music videos and previews of new songs coming out too. Question: if ebay can generate and gain a lot of revenue from their users and auctions, why can't Napster and the artists, users, and the recording industry?
--Kent Williams
(To reply, click
here.)
[Notes from the Fray Editor: the post above was mystifyingly entitled 'Cemetery Cat meows', which at least made a change from the approximately 2,000 other posts which were called 'I like Napster'or 'don't shut it down' or might as well have been. A very small proportion of posts were anti-Napster, and so, yes, they are wildly over-represented in the above selection. The reason is that it proved almost impossible to find any defense of Napster which was well-argued, informative, or based on anything except self-interest, greed, a general feeling of entitlement, or hatred of Metallica.]
(7/30)
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Reader Response from The Fray:
It doesn't surprise me that a significant fraction of the human race will engage in theft when there is little or no chance of being caught. After all, illegal cable converter boxes are ubiquitous, and we've all seen footage of mobs looting storefronts during blackouts, riots, or natural disasters. So naturally I'm not at all surprised that hordes of high school and college kiddies have no compunction about abrogating intellectual property rights by using Napster to trade pirated music.
What does surprise me are the howls of moral outrage that many of the aforementioned Napster kiddies are letting out, now that the site which has facilitated their criminal actions is coming under legal attack. The sense of entitlement that these freeloaders exhibit is amazing. In "defense" of their thievery, many of the sponges whine about how much money "greedy" artists and record companies are taking from them, as if someone were holding a gun to their head and forcing them to buy music. Others toss in irrelevancies like the claim that Napster ultimately helps, rather than hurts, legitimate music sales; whether or not this is the case, evidently the freeloaders don't believe that the creators and owners of intellectual property have the right to promote their copyrighted works however they see fit (whether or not this includes giving it away).
I've always felt that a self-righteous freeloader is one of the lowest forms of scum. I just didn't know that there were so many of them around.
--Rob Leder
(To reply, click here.)
How can so many college kids be so dumb?
Fact: A majority of the users of Napster aren't professional musicians.
Fact: Copyright infringement is a law, and laws don't care if you want to hear the music first or are too cheap to buy it.
Fact: If any of Napsters "users" were professional musicians who depend on royalties to sustain themselves, they wouldn't be so quick to back such a rip-off situation. And if you still don't comprehend how copyrights and royalties work, pretend you're a salesperson who only gets paid by commission. You sell and sell and sell and someone else gets your paycheck.
--Candyman
(To reply, click here.)
I'll take a wild guess that Napster fanatics were thrilled when the DOJ put the smackdown on Microsoft right? Admit it, your liberal minds were rapt with glee when the legal team, sponsored by the federal government, came in and claimed it was in the interests of the consumer for one of America's greatest business success stories to be torn apart. Good news for fans of irony--one of the key prosecutors in the Microsoft case is defending Napster in their current battle. This is the same guy whose portion of the case focused around Microsoft's idea to give away Internet Explorer, claiming that it was ruining competition and market forces.
--KCDixie
(To reply, click here.)
To Rob Walker: Allow me to finish one of your sentences for you: "I completely understand, and even empathize with, people who are sick of bloated CD prices"--so I guess I'll just steal them.
--William D.Ayers
(To reply, click here.)
The point of the article was that no money will be made from peer-to-peer networks without invoking the wrath of the courts. Point well-made. The fact is, most of the other "companies" committed to making peer-to-peer possible are not trying to make money. In truth, they are not setting out to be corporate entities. As the author of one of the Gnutella-type programs recently attested, "This is not a company. The software is released and used, but those objecting to it find that there is nothing [corporate] to litigate against." This brand of "non-trepreneur" sees freedom of information, not money, as their motivator. Subverting the dominant paradigm is a nice extra. Scour.com and others seeking to profit will indeed find the copyright infringement highway a tough one to navigate. In the end, a user-friendly alternative to Napster will likely emerge and dominate the peer-to-peer landscape. Will it kill off record companies? Not a chance, though they'll have to rethink their business model quite a bit.
--John Mitchell
(To reply, click here.)
Mr Walker refers to Gnutella as a "company" and an "outfit" and states they will need to make money. In reality, Gnutella is simply software. It wasn't made by a company--it was made by an individual. It was briefly released to the Internet for a time until that individual's company removed all traces. Yet Gnutella survives. It allows people to connect to each other without anything in the middle. And that is why it has certain parties concerned.
--Vondoom
(To reply, click here.)
I propose this to Napster, the recording industry, and the musicians and artists. Allow Napster to continue but have Napster generate and earn income from selling advertising space for the artists, records, music stores, etc. Also, they are also paid in the form of so many hits a day, week, month by the recording industry and other sponsors. The artists and the recording industry gain monetary profits for each song/file that is copied or transferred from user to user. Napster takes a little slice but the biggest slices of the pie go to the artists and recording industries. Same also could be said for special downloads of up-and-coming music videos and previews of new songs coming out too. Question: if ebay can generate and gain a lot of revenue from their users and auctions, why can't Napster and the artists, users, and the recording industry?
--Kent Williams
(To reply, click here.)
[Notes from the Fray Editor: the post above was mystifyingly entitled 'Cemetery Cat meows', which at least made a change from the approximately 2,000 other posts which were called 'I like Napster'or 'don't shut it down' or might as well have been. A very small proportion of posts were anti-Napster, and so, yes, they are wildly over-represented in the above selection. The reason is that it proved almost impossible to find any defense of Napster which was well-argued, informative, or based on anything except self-interest, greed, a general feeling of entitlement, or hatred of Metallica.]
(7/30)