Feelings on Napster?

I may be wrong, but I thought radio stations payed liscensing fees.

Ralph, if you read my posts in this thread you may see that I agree with you for the most part. I agree that record companies need to change their distribution paradigm, although not for the consumer's benefit but rather for their own. I also completely understand why people download music (although I don't for anything that is available for purchase).

Music, geopolitics and artistic motivation... what a thread! I don't often post on AG, but I do lurk here and enjoy many of the post(er)s. I think anyone who believes that this is a simple case (on either side of the fence) is surely fooling themselves. Napster has created a product which enables people to break the law (piracy is illegal, that is clear). However, Smith & Wesson have also produced products which enable people to break the law. Just about any product can be used to break the law, so one of the initial questions for the court is whether Napster has fair use outside of its illegal use. Clearly, (to me) the answer is yes. Napster allows for the distribution of music in the public domain, which is legal. Now to what degree must the creator of a product go through to insure that the product be used legally (Is placing a warning, like makers of Nitrous Oxide canisters enough?)? What percentage of a products use must be legal (How many tabacco cigs are rolled with EZ-Wider roll-out paper?)? There are more questions, and I don't really have answers to any of them. It is clear to me that the RIAA had to file suit (if you do not protect your copyright now, under American law you lose some of the right to protect it later). It is also clear that it is a complete waste of time. No matter how you feel about the ethics of Napster, it is an outdated technology (and less than two years old!!!) Gnutella offers the same functionality of Napster (users can exchange songs) without the burden of a central database. So who will the RIAA sue to stop Gnutella? The authors of the original source have stopped working on it and have received absolutely no gains from their work. I doubt the RIAA wants to target individual users of the software (suing your market is not a good way to generate good will in the marketplace). They could go after ISP's for being conduits, but that would set some dangerous precedents against privacy rights. So then what? Electronically pirated music is here to stay, and the RIAA needs to come to terms with that fact as soon as possible so that it can develop a strategy which allows it to maintain its profitability under the constraints of reality. As long as it persues strategies which ignore that fact (like suing individual software developers) it will fail to meet its goals.

The big difference, Ralph, is that record companies have agreed to allow radio/television stations to us their media. They have not made similar considerations to .mp3 software sites. It's like saying that you can take all of my stereo equipment because I choose to give my little brother some extra ic's.

fpeel - excellent post. I would point out, however, that there are two arguments being made. One is based in law and is probably more relevant to what happens to Napster. The other is based in ethics and so will probably have no tangible effects (grin). I think we agree 100% on the law of the matter, although it's my personaly opinion that Napster has legitamate legal uses and so should not be punished for people abusing their product (much like I believe that we shouldn't oulaw baloons just because some people like to suck nitrous). But I don't think that you can make a purely ethical argument while just appealing to civil and criminal law. Ralph - Crumb is a product of his own self destruction and not a very enlightening example. If he wanted more than $600.00 for his wok, then he should have charged more for it. As far as your Cheap Thrills LP is concerned, from what I remember the RIAA will allow you to make a copy of it to listen to in your garage as long as you don't give the copy away or try to sell it.

Fpeel - you've recognized that the system allows for record companies to avoid fair market pricing and you act according to that recognition. All I suggested in my original post was that record companies recognize that the system will allow for electronic piracy and act accordingly. I personally think that excessive litigation is akin to the machine raging against us, with similar frusterating and trivial effects (for them). It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out. I admit that it takes a lot of money to record a quality pressing, but to paraphrase a poster in another thread, I'd rather listen to a horrible reproduction of great music than a great reproduction of horrible music. I guess I'm more of a music lover than an audiophile.

Perhaps I was ambiguous. I do think that piracy is wrong, I just think that it's sometimes tricky to define piracy. Most of that difficulty stems from the fact that 'mine' and 'yours' are not always clearly defined. Possession is a social construct, not an inherent concept, so it is not surprising to see that definitions become muddied every once and a while. The industry will protect its margins, and watermarking (not that I like it) is exactly the kind of strategy that I was reffering to. By the by, piracy is illegal, but so is price fixing. Why is it that after 20 years, we're still all paying for R&D costs to develop the CD format? Why does every single (mainstream) music company charge about the same amount for CD's? And why do CD's cost more than tapes (which are more expensive to make)? Not that any of this justifies stealing. For the record, the only mp3's I've ever downloaded are from live shows which are not available for purchase by a band whose entire back catalog I own. Even with these I feel a slight ethical twinge.

If this is a master plan by Napster than I want Scott (that's his name right?) running the country. The above mentioned company is BMG and I'm pretty sure this is all ad hoc. But, perhaps this is vindication of my idea that the best plan for the record companies was to assume that .mp3's would be around and to try to plan based on that assumption rather than spending too many resources fighting the inevitable.

Pghedge - What do you think about d/ling titles from labels that don't have a website or aren't available for preview in stores? There's a record store in town that offers previews, but certain record labels won't allow them to open their cd's and sell them as new. Is is appropriate/ethical to d/l these titles and then delete them later when you've decided whether or not you want to buy them? What about songs that are no longer in print so they can't be bought in any way that would profit the record company or artist? What about songs that never will be in print such as bootlegged concerts? (The last two types are the only time I d/l .mp3's) I agree that for the most part it is unethical to d/l music instead of buying it, but I think it's absurd to think that the issue is black and white. Also, I think most people would be happy with a quality of music akin to a tape recorded of the 'waves if they could get the music for free (remember that 'philes are hardly who the record companies are worried about losing).