Life after Napster
Mar 07 '01
The Bottom Line If Napster goes away, people will still find a way to trade files. Technology rolls on and we as human beings must deal with change.
As of this Epinion, Napster has less than 48 hours to begin filtering its content, but does this mean the end of free music as we know it? No.
There are a lot of copycat services already out there to choose from and one you may have never heard of will be hard to stop and that is OpenNap. But the topic here is Napster so let’s stick with that.
The issue here is dealing with technology and moving on. The RIAA has had such a hold on the music industry that no artist or band can really be a success unless they give in to their demands. Have you ever watched those Behind The Music specials on VH-1? MP3 music formats and services like Napster have leveled the playing field to those “starving artists” out there trying to get noticed.
Did you know that on the average most bands receive only five cents for every album sold, but can pull in thousands and thousands of dollars each night when they go on tour? How is this possible? Because the artist has more control on the tours, and can make more money while on tour than selling albums.
The recording industry needs to offer more than just the music from now on because this technology is not going away anytime soon. I was watching TV last night and saw two commercials on VH-1 that were selling Lenny Kravitz’s greatest hits album and some other artist. The difference here was that for those that bought the CD from the TV ad got a videotape and some other stuff too. This is what the RIAA would have to do too. Let the music be the “bait” and then make the money on the other stuff. There was even a band that offered their new album to their fan club before it was available in stores.
Music artists should also not mind that people are getting their songs for free, heck we’ve been doing that since blank cassette tapes went on sale in the 1970’s and still to this day people still buy CDs and tapes.
Napster may begin filtering some of the copyrighted content people are sharing with one another, but you will never stop the sharing. People will just set up websites and/or use other web hosting services out there to do direct sharing and there will be no way the RIAA can police the entire internet. It’s kinda like a Starbucks, there is one on every corner (sometimes two in the same strip mall).
I will still continue to share music files with the rest of the world. I may download a lot of music, but I still will go to their concerts and buy their overpriced merchandise too just to show my support to them as artists.
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