Article: Napster Changing Music Distribution
Author: Dwight Silverman
Source: Houston Chronicle
URL: http://199.97.97.29/contWriter/cndweb/2000/03/19/cndin/1792-0002-pat?nytimes.html
This article examines the new mp3 music finder—Napster—and how it has and will change how music is distributed. The author starts out by revisiting some of the few technology products (email, www, instant messenger) that have revolutionized the way people work, play, and interact. Napster, it seems, is the next new revolutionary technology.
Napster is a software product that is installed on a PC that has internet access.
Essentially, Napster is an easy way to find music (in mp3 format) online. Once connected to
Napster, users can easily share mp3s with each other. By designating a shared folder on his/her hard drive to store all mp3s, Napster captures a listing of all the user’s mp3s and adds this list into a central database that stores every other user’s mp3s that is currently connected. Connected users can then search, under various categories, for the particular song they are looking for. Once the user finds the song he/she wants, it can be downloaded with the click of a button. All file transfers, however, are done directly between users. The Napster servers are only used to store a listing of songs that a user has. In this way, there is never a bandwidth issue.
Along with any new technology comes a handful of threats to get rid of before it becomes too big. Unsurprisingly, the main rival to Napster is the music recording industry. In fact, the recording industry has filed a lawsuit against Napster alleging that Napster’s intent is to foster piracy. Although there are copyright infringement issues when people are freely copying an artist’s music, Napster contends that Napster stores no music on its own servers, and that it can’t be held responsible for what users do with the software. It remains to be seen how the courts will see this issue. In the meantime, though, Napster has posted various disclaimers warning its users against illegal copying.
Another Napster threat is the bandwidth that is required to transfer mp3 files. Mp3s, though small in size compared with their .wav counterpart, are still rather large. Since a lot of college students use Napster, network administrators at universities have noticed a significant impact on their network bandwidth due to transferring mp3s. Many schools have discouraged their students from using Napster because it is such a burden on their network. In some cases, campuses have gone so far as banning the usage of Napster.
Despite these problems, the author believes Napster will prove to be a breakthrough technology in the music distribution world.
After reading the mentioned article, I did notice a sense of bias. The author paid little attention to the issue of copyright infringement, which I believe is a central issue to software such as Napster. In fact, it almost seems as if he is encouraging this piracy. Towards the end of the article he makes a sales pitch for Napster says “you’ll never think of music the same way.”
The question that was left in my mind after reading this article was what is going to happen to the future of music distribution. Clearly, there have to be some changes made. Will software products, such as Napster, be shut down by the recording industry? Or, will Napster spark a whole new way of distributing music? Only time will tell.