Slashdot Mirror

I would love to point people to

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20050907/1311206_ F.shtml

or more simply,

http://hive.jup.com/analysts/elliott/archives/0103 02.html

(man, slashdot needs to do more research!)

Yeah, and the report that is referenced in TFA isn't available to the public-at-large. So I'm left wondering about the veracity of the statements made.

I'm in agreement with another poster who posted that it seems far more plausible that 17-21% of companies had 1+ employees using Mac OS X, not that 17-21% of employees at large companies were using Mac. I think the author at MacWorld may very well be taking liberties with the wording of the report.

Anyone have access to the report that can post the relevant details here?

The bulk of that 50% figure is AOL Time Warner. Of course you could most likely attribute that to AOL being an ISP with a proprietary interface that tends to route surfers through their own pages. So I'd say that AOL certainly commands a great deal of the audience which makes up its customer base. Look below AOL and I see dominance, but nothing that's so frightening. I imagine if you looked at folks who use another ISP AOL's dominance wouldn't be so great.

AOL Time Warner Network 32.0%

Microsoft Sites 7.5%

Yahoo! 7.2%

Napster Digital 3.6%

The bulk of that 50% figure is AOL Time Warner. Of course you could most likely attribute that to AOL being an ISP with a proprietary interface that tends to route surfers through their own pages. So I'd say that AOL certainly commands a great deal of the audience which makes up its customer base. Look below AOL and I see dominance, but nothing that's so frightening. I imagine if you looked at folks who use another ISP AOL's dominance wouldn't be so great.

AOL Time Warner Network 32.0%

Microsoft Sites 7.5%

Yahoo! 7.2%

Napster Digital 3.6%

I was also about to post a link to the report from Jupiter Media Metrix, but I am glad to see that someone else has done the same research. After a bit of URL-wrestling (removing some junk and user-tracking stuff), the direct link to the report is:
http://www.jup.com/company/pressrelease.jsp?doc=pr 010604.

Indeed, the most interesting part of this report (not mentioned in the article) is that AOL Time Warner gets almost one third of the total time spent online, mostly through e-mail and instant messaging. All other companies get less than 8% each. Outside the top 10, they get less than 0.5%.

This report measures the time spent looking at or using the web sites or applications (e-mail, messaging, ...) but does not say anything about the number of "clicks", number of advertisements seen, or total traffic. The time spent reading or composing e-mail messages should not be counted in the same way as the time spent looking at some web sites, because the user is focused on different things. Also, if two thirds of the time spent on AOL Time Warner comes from communication services, I expect that Microsoft gets a fair share of time from its MSN Hotmail service, but the report does not provide any details about this.

You can get a better idea of what this looks like here. Notice the little note at the bottom-- *Two -thirds of AOL Time Warner's minutes come from communications services (e.g., e-mail, instant messaging, greetings) That doesn't seem right-- many people use mail clients that operate "offline," and hence wouldn't be counted in these statistics. That doesn't mean that AOL and MS are taking over everyone's email. More to the point, if most of AOL's clicks are coming through email, do we really care? AOL *is* an ISP, and reading email is one of the main things people do with their computers. I don't think controlling a person's email is the same as controlling their content. The same considerations apply to MS and Yahoo. I'll bet money that HotMail accounts for at least half of MS's hits. Again, this isn't a terribly sinister development-- Hotmail is a convenient mail client, and it's not like they try to control what you send in your emails. Yahoo! also offers popular mail service, so i you take out mail-reading as an activity, the numbers look more like this: AOL: 10% Yahoo!: 5% MSN: 4% Napster: 3.6% In other words, the top 4 web *content* sites take up at most a quarter of time spent online, not half as the report says. More to the point, the fact that only 39% of our time is spent on the rest of the web isn't all that sinister either. That's still a big chunk of time, and it's *still* distributed over thousands of sites. I'd like to see the numbers for the top 70% and 80% figures-- that would likely be more informative. The fact that a few big players are able to attract a lot of people with highly generic content doesn't mean that people don't have choices. A lot of people have come online in the last few years, and they will tend to gravitate to the big names. That doesn't mean that the rest of us can't continue to enjoy slashdot. Besides, I think it's narrow-minded to assume that just because MSN, AOL, and Yahoo! are big they don't offer useful content. Yahoo! in particular offers dozens of useful features that I use on a regular basis-- news, stock quotes, movie listings, search. These are all things that are fairly generic in nature and I don't particularly care who provides them. I go to more obscure sites like slashdot for tech news or salon for poltical commentary. But that doesn't negate the value of being able to get a free stock quote or movie listing at one of the big three.

Library's have been proven not to be a great threat to the sale of books.

Where has this been proven? Can you show me some evidence?? The fact is that libraries would continue to enjoy wide public support even if they were shown to hurt book sales, because they provide an undeniable public benefit, just as Napster does.

The same cannot be said, that napster will not hurt the sale of records.

In fact much more can be said: Napster actually helps the sale of records.

And while you may try to refute that sales will actually be hurt, that is unproven, and highly doubtful.

No it's not. Read the link. (I've included it several times in this thread, but you seem to have never clicked on it.) In case you're wondering, Jupiter Communications is one of the most respected media research and analysis in the world.

As that article in the Atlantic Monthly pointed out, CD sales around college campuses were down [though not in huge numbers], while national sales were up. This fact alone is cause for concern, or at least question.

Yes it is. Luckily, these questions have been answered. The research at issue was part of a study bought by the RIAA to use at the trial. Fortunately, there are myriad problems with its seemingly negative conclusions. Most egregiously, the study failed to take into account purchases of CDs at online stores like CDNow. Due to the fact that college students are among the most wired and moreover among the most likely to purchase items online of any demographic, this failing very likely explains entirely the fall in "college music store" sales. Further supporting this conclusion is the fact that the study found sales at "college music stores" fell more in the year before Napster came out than in the year after!! Thus the most likely conclusion to be drawn from this RIAA-sponsered study is that 1) online stores like CDNow and amazon.com have taken sales from record stores near college campuses, but 2) Napster has spurred CD sales enough amongst college students to partially reverse the trend.

And in any case, despite what you may believe, the average Napster user is *not* a college student. Besides, speaking from my own experience as a college student, Napster has actually limited my recent CD purchases, because I don't currently own a stereo besides my computer. Once I move out of my tiny dorm room into an apartment, though, you can bet I'll buy a good stereo, and plenty of CD's--many of them purchases I would never have made had I not had my enjoyment of different types of music enhanced by Napster.

Napster traffics the most popular songs in almost instantly, and theoretically, only one purchase needs to be made for this to happen!

Oh come on. For one thing, there are something like 100 different (unconnected) Napster servers, and most users are only logged on a small fraction of the time, so in any real world situation hundreds of source copies are necessary to cause any particular song to be available on Napster even remotely reliably. But this is all besides the point. Are you honestly telling me that only 1 (or very few) of Napster's 20 million users went out and bought, eg. the new N'Sync CD which sold 2.4 million copies in its first week? Obviously not. This is totally, patently absurd and has nothing to do with whatever real effect Napster has on CD sales.

Something like 90% of the mp3s listed on there are redundant--only the most recent and currently popular songs.

Just logged onto Napster now, and it's showing 765,685 songs being shared on this particular server alone. If we accept your 90% figure (I'd guess 95% is closer to the truth, but whatever), that means people are sharing over 75,000 unique songs at this moment on that server alone!! In comparison, the RIAA ensures that only 150 new songs get radio play in any given year. 150. So let's see which avenue of free music is more culturally enriching and offers more avenues away from the "most recent and currently popular songs":

radio--150 songs a year
Napster--75,000 songs at any given time

Hmm...looks like society and the spread of worthwhile art come out about 500 times better with Napster than with the old way of getting free music. Indeed, that 75,000 songs represents almost three times as many songs as are released by the major labels in an entire year! That's right--the major labels only released around 2,600 albums in 1999; meanwhile, over 3,000 artists have explicitly released their music for distribution over Napster (and an additional 14,000 have given their permission by joining Napster's new artist program). Let me restate that for you: there have been more songs expressly released to Internet public domain sharing since Napster debuted than there have been songs distributed by the major labels in the same time period.

And you want to claim that Napster consists only of "the most recent and currently popular songs"? Are you joking or just remarkably ignorant???

You're going to have a hard time arguing that music enriches the mind to the same extent that a good book does, especially when it's pop music!

Well now you've really made an idiot of yourself. Suffice it to say that no one with any appreciation of art or culture--least of all writers of important literature--would ever claim inherent superiority for any one particular medium of art over all others. In fact, most knowledgable people would argue that particular pieces of music can be every bit as expressive, enriching, artistic and important as the greatest works of literature, much less the trashy romance novel drivel which makes up the plurality of check outs at the typical public library. Nevermind Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms (although you can certainly find not only their works but those of almost every classical composer of note on Napster); nevermind even the great impact of jazz, argued by many to be the most important artistic movement of the 20th Century. There are plenty of challenging, important, "mind enriching" works of art to be found even amongst today's pop music. Any attempt to compare the artistic worth of the typical piece of fiction on the New York Times Bestseller List to, just to take a very successful and rather mainstream pop album, Radiohead's masterful Ok Computer, is laughable. For crying out loud, look at that list! It's all romance novels and police thrillers, with some battle-the-Antichrist born-again lit thrown for variety (#11). You have to go all the way to #16 (off the official list) to even find an important author. And this is without taking into account the NYT's recently spun-off Harry Potter Bestseller List.

The average piece of new fiction sold today is almost certainly of lower cultural and artistic value some of the most popular new music. Sorry to destroy your illusions, but the average book checked out of a public library is probably of even lower quality.

But that's besides the point. The point of all this isn't to engage in cultural snobbery and certainly not to censor based on it. Despite, probably because of, the fact that libraries check out millions of copies of trashy romance novels a day, they are still vital institutions to society, providing important positive functions to their communities. Exactly the same, if not more, can be said of Napster.

On a side note, if you really don't believe that music can be as enriching as written words, you probably just haven't heard enough good music. Start exploring.

I remember correctly (it's been a long thread) you mentioned that early on publishers tried to put libraries out of existence. Are you aware of any articles or published works that describe those efforts?

I mentioned that I thought I remembered hearing such a thing. I'm pretty sure I did, but don't have any evidence to point you to. I was rather hoping someone else would steer me to such evidence; as they haven't it might be worth considering that I remembered incorrectly on this point...

I also wanted to say that from my experience living with an avid reader and library patron, that dedicated library patrons NEVER buy books. My wife reads approximately four books a week and in the twenty years we have been married she has never bought a single book. So the idea of your antagonist here that libraries are an inferior version of Napster from the standpoint of availability or that they libraries encourage people to buy books, at least from my experience, is unfounded in practice. She may have to wait a few weeks for some latest and greatest novel to wend its way through the "on hold" list, but hell there are 89 other trashy novels to read in the meantime so it's not a problem. Does the phrase "why would they buy it, if they can get if for free" ring a bell?

That was my impression, but it's nice to have it confirmed by someone who's more familiar with libraries than me. Meanwhile, we have factual evidence that just the opposite is true with Napster. And yet people who donate trashy novels to the local public library are looked up to as good samaritans, while someone posting a difficult-to-find and musically important song to Napster is a scum-sucking pirate!

I have gone back and forth on my feelings about Napster. I do use it extensively and feel that for the first time in my life I finally have the same kind of access to music that avid readers have always enjoyed because of the existence of libraries. The only people who have had this kind of access to music before were either extremely wealthy or were somehow attached to the music industry (radio people, music reviewers, etc.) I now essentially have the same or better access to music for research or just plain out of curiosity purposes and this is a great thing. If I wanted to listen to every version or cover of a particular song I like I can do that now. It has really increased my appreciation and knowledge of music immensely.

Then don't feel guilty about it! (As long as you buy the CD/compensate using fairtunes the artists you really appreciate!) The fact that you're so fraught with doubt about something that you recognize has significantly impacted your life for the better shows just how successful the RIAA has been in demonizing Napster.

Can you imagine how even less literate our culture would be now if all reading was pay per view? In fact, using this logic, it might explain the relatively low musical taste of the mass culture. When one has to buy every piece of music one wants to listen to it discourages taking a lot, or any, chances when buying CD's.

A very insightful point. In my experience, most people still get their books from stores, not libraries, but the fact that one can browse a book to your heart's content before buying it probably does have a lot to do with the risks we take on interesting literature.

However, I do worry about the artist conpensation aspects of the Napster controversy. I don't think this whole composing and producing for tips idea will fly.

It will be interesting to see. Personally, I'm supporting fairtunes and trying to give it a chance. Still, it's worth noting that that's not the only way for artists to make money in a world of unrestricted MP3 flows. For one thing, many if not most people will probably still choose to support those artists they really enjoy, even if they can get their music for free. For another, artists could include various other un-Napsterable incentives along with buying their CD, like first dibs on the best concert seats. In addition, artists are beginning to experiment with a model in which they would announce that they have, for example, just finished recording an album, but they won't release it until they get x preorders--enough to cover their costs and maybe get some profit for themselves. Even if the total number of sales is lower than it would have been under the old system, the fact that the Internet is allowing musicians to bypass the big labels means that the artists can make much more money even with much lower volume sales. And finally, the sound quality of a CD played out of a real stereo will beat MP3 for the forseeable future.

Err...how many times do you read a book? Once. Thus, even if it was faded the first time, there's no benefit to you to go out and buy a brand new copy, because you're done with it.

With music, on the other hand, you listen to it lots of times. Thus, you always have an incentive to upgrade to the better quality copy you get from buying the CD. Which is part of the reason why Napster causes people to buy more CD's than they would otherwise and libraries cause people to buy fewer books. Your argument is both theoretically poor and factually invalidated.

No, not legally--I understand why copyright law is usually read such that Napster users might be infringing but library card holders are not. (On the other hand I'm pretty sure I remember hearing that the book publishers tried long and hard to sue public libraries out of existence when they first appeared.) But in terms of its effect on the marketplace for music, its moral ramifications, and its societal implications, I challenge anyone to show me a relevant difference between Napster (in its current form) and your local public library.

Both are places where you can obtain a copy of a copyrighted work, and use and enjoy it in its intended manner, for free. In both, the original copy of a work is donated out of the generosity of their own heart by someone who has (presumably) legally bought and paid for the original copyrighted work. (Of course, in the case of a public library, such a person has done a "good deed", while with Napster they have engaged in "rampant piracy" or some such thing.) Sure, a library book doesn't have the same look-and-feel as one you'd buy yourself--yellowed pages, that krinkly plastic book jacket--but MP3's are even worse: no physical CD, no liner notes, no cover art; the risk of getting a bad recording, a recording that chirps or hiccups or cuts off just before the end of the song; and the certainty that no matter what you get it won't play on your stereo, and if it could it would sound like crap compared to the original CD.

Yes, you have to return or renew library books after two weeks, but the point is that's good enough for how most people enjoy most books--they read them once and never look at them again. Similarly, Napster allows you an experience that is "good enough for how most people enjoy most songs"--that is, if you've got some tune stuck in your head, or just want some background music while you surf the web, you fire up Napster and get it. No, a public library isn't good enough to replace ownership in the case of those really important books that really impact you and you just want to have around...but neither is Napster. For a truly moving musical experience, you need a real CD (or good vinyl) on a real stereo, not some 128 kpbs muddle, decrypted in an electrically noisy environment, coming out your cheap underpowered magnetically-shielded plastic speakers. That is, the fact that you don't get to keep library books is a look-and-feel issue, not a utility issue--and the public library is still ahead of MP3 in terms of look-and-feel.

If anything, libraries pose a much greater danger to the publishing industry than Napster does to the RIAA, because once you have checked a book out of the library and read it, you are almost certain never to purchase it. With Napster, on the other hand, downloading an MP3 arguably makes you more likely to purchase the CD than before; certainly there is conclusive evidence that Napster increases CD purchases overall.

And yet, public libraries are held up as the paragon of the public good, the ideal of a fostered community, the sort of thing politicians throw into speeches to demonstrate what's right about America (or, more likely, what used to be right about America but no longer exists). Meanwhile, Napster--which, if anything, encourages more community (libraries, after all, are known for explicitly discouraging chatting), illustrates the possibility for knowledge shared throughout humanity which is inherent in the Internet, leads to more legal music purchasing, and facilitates an alternative to an industry which affords the artists much fewer rights and a much lower share of the monetary fruits of their labor than does the publishing industry--is sued, demonized, held up as an example of everything that's wrong and immoral about today's culture.

Huh? What gives?? Before the entertainment industry bought new copyright laws in 1997 and 1998, there was no legal concept of copyright infringement without corresponding non-commercial gains. And yet suddenly everyone believes that sharing music with others is not only illegal (it's still arguable whether that's true) but somehow immoral as well?? Somehow everyone has this ridiculous idea that copyright entitles a copyright holder to oversee every use his/her content is put to, fair use be damned?? (For those who don't understand why this is so absurd: copyright is automatically extended to every single piece of content ever created, no matter by whom or for what purpose. The above idea would mean you would need to get the permission of a gas station before you could submit the receipt they gave you as part of an expense account.)

Napster should be held up as an example of what's right with the world, of a way the promise of technology is enabling people to share the art they love, to expand their musical horizons, or just to get a copy of the new NSync song to play as a joke. It's an example of how the Internet will revolutionize an industry by opening up alternatives to a greedy oligopoly which stifles artists' rights to their own creations.

And yet even on /. we see people dismissing Napster as nothing but a bunch of immoral law-breaking pirating hooligans. Guess what, people: you've been trolled.

No, not legally--I understand why copyright law is usually read such that Napster users might be infringing but library card holders are not. (On the other hand I'm pretty sure I remember hearing that the book publishers tried long and hard to sue public libraries out of existence when they first appeared.) But in terms of its effect on the marketplace for music, its moral ramifications, and its societal implications, I challenge anyone to show me a relevant difference between Napster (in its current form) and your local public library.

Both are places where you can obtain a copy of a copyrighted work, and use and enjoy it in its intended manner, for free. In both, the original copy of a work is donated out of the generosity of their own heart by someone who has (presumably) legally bought and paid for the original copyrighted work. (Of course, in the case of a public library, such a person has done a "good deed", while with Napster they have engaged in "rampant piracy" or some such thing.) Sure, a library book doesn't have the same look-and-feel as one you'd buy yourself--yellowed pages, that krinkly plastic book jacket--but MP3's are even worse: no physical CD, no liner notes, no cover art; the risk of getting a bad recording, a recording that chirps or hiccups or cuts off just before the end of the song; and the certainty that no matter what you get it won't play on your stereo, and if it could it would sound like crap compared to the original CD.

Yes, you have to return or renew library books after two weeks, but the point is that's good enough for how most people enjoy most books--they read them once and never look at them again. Similarly, Napster allows you an experience that is "good enough for how most people enjoy most songs"--that is, if you've got some tune stuck in your head, or just want some background music while you surf the web, you fire up Napster and get it. No, a public library isn't good enough to replace ownership in the case of those really important books that really impact you and you just want to have around...but neither is Napster. For a truly moving musical experience, you need a real CD (or good vinyl) on a real stereo, not some 128 kpbs muddle, decrypted in an electrically noisy environment, coming out your cheap underpowered magnetically-shielded plastic speakers. That is, the fact that you don't get to keep library books is a look-and-feel issue, not a utility issue--and the public library is still ahead of MP3 in terms of look-and-feel.

If anything, libraries pose a much greater danger to the publishing industry than Napster does to the RIAA, because once you have checked a book out of the library and read it, you are almost certain never to purchase it. With Napster, on the other hand, downloading an MP3 arguably makes you more likely to purchase the CD than before; certainly there is conclusive evidence that Napster increases CD purchases overall.

And yet, public libraries are held up as the paragon of the public good, the ideal of a fostered community, the sort of thing politicians throw into speeches to demonstrate what's right about America (or, more likely, what used to be right about America but no longer exists). Meanwhile, Napster--which, if anything, encourages more community (libraries, after all, are known for explicitly discouraging chatting), illustrates the possibility for knowledge shared throughout humanity which is inherent in the Internet, leads to more legal music purchasing, and facilitates an alternative to an industry which affords the artists much fewer rights and a much lower share of the monetary fruits of their labor than does the publishing industry--is sued, demonized, held up as an example of everything that's wrong and immoral about today's culture.

Huh? What gives?? Before the entertainment industry bought new copyright laws in 1997 and 1998, there was no legal concept of copyright infringement without corresponding non-commercial gains. And yet suddenly everyone believes that sharing music with others is not only illegal (it's still arguable whether that's true) but somehow immoral as well?? Somehow everyone has this ridiculous idea that copyright entitles a copyright holder to oversee every use his/her content is put to, fair use be damned?? (For those who don't understand why this is so absurd: copyright is automatically extended to every single piece of content ever created, no matter by whom or for what purpose. The above idea would mean you would need to get the permission of a gas station before you could submit the receipt they gave you as part of an expense account.)

Napster should be held up as an example of what's right with the world, of a way the promise of technology is enabling people to share the art they love, to expand their musical horizons, or just to get a copy of the new NSync song to play as a joke. It's an example of how the Internet will revolutionize an industry by opening up alternatives to a greedy oligopoly which stifles artists' rights to their own creations.

And yet even on /. we see people dismissing Napster as nothing but a bunch of immoral law-breaking pirating hooligans. Guess what, people: you've been trolled.

But it still doesn't prove whether a persons CD buying goes up or down due to Napster...The studies are shit, basically. They don't prove a damn thing.

Wrong.

This argument only holds up if Napster use CAUSES more sales. Really, all we know is that Napster users are also record buyers, but the arrow of causation could point the other way -- that record buyers are more likely to use Napster.

It could be shown that Napster users buy a more-than-average number of records in the first place, and that Napster is causing them to buy fewer than they would, although still more than average.

People buy more CD's after having used Napster than they did before, after controlling for all major demographic factors.

To quote from Jupiter Communications' press release detailing their report: "When we conducted our consumer survey, controlled for key music purchasing factors-such as existing spending level, age, income, gender, and online tenure-we still found that Napster usage is one of the strongest determinants of increased music buying." (emphasis added)

Meanwhile, the only study the RIAA can point to is one which shows that sales at "college record stores" are going down. Unfortunately, this brain-dead excuse for a study miraculously fails to take into account purchases made at online record stores like CDNow!! This despite the fact that college students are always at the leading-edge of adoption of online phenomena, including online shopping.

Oh yeah--and the RIAA's report shows that sales at "college record stores" dropped more in the year before Napster came out than the year since!

So basically, the available evidence if pretty conclusive that so far, Napster has increased CD sales over what they otherwise would have been.

Sorry about my combative tone in the previous post. I was fed up with seeing the same misconceptions repeated over and over as fact, and I decided to pick on you. And I got a bit carried away, in that while most of what I said is undebatable fact, there is certainly some leeway in the way the AHRA can be interpreted. That is, it explicitly makes all non-commercial copying of recorded music legal, but elsewhere in the Act it places an automatic "RIAA-tax" royalty on blank recordable media--DAT at that time, and some CD-R's now.

The implicit assumption was that this way, at least the RIAA wouldn't lose any money on non-commercial copying. (It does, however, blow away any argument you and Lars may have that copyright entitles you to know and control exactly what happens to your music at all times.) The "problem" is that in the digital world, all media are created equal. That is, we no longer need a special medium built just to carry recorded music--anything which accepts 1's and 0's works equally well. Thus, since the RIAA couldn't possibly ask for royalties on hard drive sales, since hard drives can be used to hold anything, including music, then the tradeoff they thought they engineered into the law goes away. IMO, this in no way negates the fact that the law explicitly states that all non-commercial copying of recorded music is fair use, but there are those who would disagree.

So, to answer your question, the law at issue is the 1992 Audio Home Recording Act. ( 1008 is particularly relevant.) If you asked any Constitutional copyright law expert, they would probably tell you that was not a "change" but in fact a codification of existing copyright law--that if anything, the AHRA was a setback for consumer fair use rights, because of the assuption that non-commercial copying could only be "bought" in exchange for a tariff on blank media, and that it was only legal for recorded music and not all copyrighted materials. Of course, if you asked a corporate copyright attorney they'd probably tell you the opposite.

the fact remains that distribution of someone's art without their permission is wrong. If you believe otherwise, you truly belong in Stallman's academic socialist cults.

Ever been to a public library? Do you think they're morally "wrong"??

You do realize that a public library redistributes the work of thousands of authors without their permission and without compensating them, don't you??

Yes, there is one inherent difference between a library and Napster: when you take a book out of a library, you only get to read it once before you have to return it; with MP3s, you get to choose to keep the recording on your computer for as long as you want. Of course, the way people use books is totally different from the way they use songs--they usually read a book only once; if they do reread a book, they only do so after many years (and you can always check a book out of the library again and reread it later).

The end point is that a library performs exactly the same function as Napster--it allows one person who has purchased a copyrighted work of art to non-commercially donate it so that many people can use it for free in the way that such works of art are traditionally used by those who buy them. For all the same reasons as why libraries have not hurt sales of books, Napster will not and has not hurt sales of CD's. And for all the same reasons as why donating your books to your local library is an good deed and a benefit to your community, ripping CD's and sharing the MP3's on Napster is a good deed and a benefit to the worldwide community of Internet users. (Or is donating a book to the library only a good deal to those of us in "socialist cults"?? Hee hee hee.)

I damn well better have a way of making sure that I'm not losing CD sales to kids on fucking Napster. You may care less if the artists whose work you steal starve,

As I'm sure you've read, numerous studies (here's one) confirm that Napster use has the effect of increasing CD sales. Images of musicians starving in the streets due to MP3 trading really have no place in this discussion.

ask any professional musician what they think of the idea, and they won't like it.

Why don't you ask the Smashing Pumpkins what they think of it? Or Limp Bizkit? Or Chuck D? Or the Offspring? Or Courtney Love? Or Ben Folds Five? Or Eve 6?

I suppose Neil Young and Radiohead aren't professional musicians??? Nor the Greatful Dead??

All these musicians and more are on the record pledging support for Napster. Of course, many musicians are on the record as being against Napster as well. (Metallica, Dr. Dre, Eminem, Alanis Morrisette, etc.) The point is, just as none of these professional musicians can pretend to speak for each other, you or the RIAA very most certainly cannot. If you ask me, it matters much more what the Constitution and the Supreme Court record say, and it chooses my side over yours; but the point that even professional musicians (who, I might add, might be very reluctant to publically go against the RIAA even if they do support Naptser) are split on the issue ought to tell you something about the recording industry you're so desperately trying to ply as a moral good.

[If you rip a CD and share it on Napster]...you're just a lowly pickpocket.

Well, no. If your analogy made any sense, then to be correct it would be "you're just like Robin Hood"--that is, you're "stealing" something for the purposes of selflessly giving it to others.

Disregarding that, I have trouble believing that you cannot understand the difference between true theft, which involves taking a scarce good which cannot be replaced, and "unauthorized" copying, which involves making more of a non-scarce good without taking anything from anyone. (As for the argument that it takes away "sales", see above.)

To anyone who makes a living from the music industry, Napster is the digital equivalent of the LA riots.

Come on. If by "anyone who makes a living from the music industry" you mean a recording label executive, then I'd say it's the digital equivalent of the Boston Tea Party, if not the Montgomery Bus Boycott. If by "anyone who makes a living from the music industry" you mean a musician, then the suggestion that having your art spread to thousands more people than was otherwise possible is equivalent to having the corner market in which you have invested all your savings and decades of your life looted and burned is patently ridiculous and extremely insulting.

In the meantime, I'm going to go investigate the validity of your statements, and if what you say is true, today is a grim day for The_Messenger.

This is what really bothers me about your approach to this issue: you truly believe that creating something gives you the right to control every possible way that thing is ever used. Luckily, our intellectual property laws are not founded on such a ludicrous and unworkable premise.

And so I ask you: why on earth would such a day be so horribly grim??

From what you've told us about yourself, you're a musician; I'm going to assume, then, that you're also a music lover. Taking each position in turn, then...

As a musician, whose songs might be traded on Napster: Are you signed by a recording label?? If so, my sincere congratulations--only a small fraction of professional musicians are. Even if you are, though, I'm assuming that you're not one of the several-dozen-artists-per-year who is actively promoted to the mainstream public through label-directed radio play. Thus, by having your songs traded via Napster, you gain an incredible free promotional service which was never before available. Indeed, before Napster many up-and-coming artists had to buy copies of their own CD's to give them away in promotional record "clubs" like BMG and Columbia House (yes, the artist, not the label, pays for those copies)--now with Napster many more signed artists can reach many times more people for free! Plus, unlike a record club, someone who downloads your song from Napster and likes it is very likely to buy your entire CD; with a record club, they already have the CD, and usually have no idea that they are taking money from the artist's pocket instead of the other way around.

If you're not signed, then (should your recordings somehow find their way to Napster without your permission) you obviously have nothing to lose. You probably won't make any money off the deal, but you will have the satisfaction of spreading your art to thousands and potentially even more people, which ought to be the main goal of any real artist. Incidentally, in this case you ought to look into putting your music on something like mp3.com--it probably won't make you too much money, but it'll get you some income, expose your music to a huge listener base, and do so without putting you in debt for life to a recording label, which a record contract would most likely do.

As a music lover: Suddenly, you have access to Napster, the world's largest collection of music--perhaps the world's largest collection of art in history. Why don't you try it out? Download the software, fire it up...search for an artist you particularly love. Maybe you'll find live recordings you'd never have heard otherwise. Maybe you'll find out about an album they did that you'd never heard, or find remixes they'd done to others' music/had done to theirs.

Now, click on a user who has one of their songs and add them to your hotlist; then go to your hotlist and browse their shared library. Maybe you'll find songs you'd heard before and maybe even wanted to purchase but had forgotten to. Almost certainly you'll see lots of songs and artists you've never heard of. Download a couple. Try them out. Maybe you'll like them, maybe not.

Maybe you'll discover a new band that will speak to you. Given a few attempts at this, you probably will. Search for more of their stuff. Maybe you'll want to buy their CD, so you can listen to it on a real stereo. If you're a musician and appreciate sound quality, you probably will. Either way, if the music is really good you should ensure that the artist earns some money off of your enjoyment (no, buying the CD does **NOT** do ensure anyone gets any money except the label): donate $5 or $10 to them at fairtunes.com.

Suddenly you'll realize that today wasn't a grim day after all: you'll realize that it maybe changed the way you listen to music, maybe opened some new doors. Maybe slightly changed your life for the better.

And then that's when you'll start sharing the music you love with other people on Napster, so that they might search through your music library and find something that speaks to them like it speaks to you. That's when you'll realize that using Napster isn't about greed or whining or rationalizing, but is about sharing art, about finding new artistic experiences.

Let's face it: stealing is easy. If they wanted to, anyone with half a brain could steal (say) a Porsche a lot more easily than they could earn even a portion of the money it costs. The point is, most people don't steal if there's an alternative.

On the other hand, people don't like being taken advantage of. But that's what they are under both the current music-obtaining model, in which they are forced to pay $18 for an album, without getting the chance to listen to it first, even if they only want one song off it (if they want a digital copy of it so they can listen to it in their Rio, or upload it to their computer at work, they have to rip it themselves or they're out of luck), or under any new model which will pass the RIAA's SDMI requirements.

People like to reward things which impact their lives, which is why I think sales of unfettered MP3's for fair prices would take off if they were as convenient and centralized as Napster. And which is why I think fairtunes.com will grow tremendously in the meantime. I know I've already remunerated several artists whose MP3's I've had for a while and really enjoyed, and I plan on giving more soon.

Given the horriffic way artists are treated by the current system, I have a hard time imagining why anyone cognizent of the proven positive impact Napster has on people's willingness to pay for recorded music could view it as anything but a boon to music lovers everywhere. So why don't you explain to me why you're so against it?

My personal position on Napster is that they are trying to make big bucks with little value added, so while the music industry is (as usual) being closed-minded and ignorant, Napster are not the big heroes in my book.

My personal position on Napster is that they are trying to make big bucks with little value added, so while the music industry is (as usual) being closed-minded and ignorant, Napster are not the big heroes in my book.