The RIAA, Napster and IMar 12 '01 Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line Napster as we know it is going to change, but that won't help the RIAA. In fact it will just cause them more problems. Content: Napster, me and why I don't buy music; Considering a possible Napster shutdown and a few ideas of my own. The RIAA, Napster, and I When I was introduced to Napster in early November of '99, I was amazed at how convenient the software was. With my great new tool, I expanded my MP3 collection rapidly (aided by a new DSL connection) and soon I had a long playlist. The RIAA lawsuit didn’t surprise me and as far as I was concerned my downloading music wasn’t costing them a cent. You see, Napster is what interested me in music in the first place(I’m still not that big of a music listener though). I still don’t buy music because it’s not worth it; there might be a few songs that I like by one artist but they’re usually spread over several CDs and there’s no way I’m going to buy a $20(Canadian)CD for ONE song. Twenty dollars for the only 3 minutes you actually like is not worth it; especially when movies often cost less for two whole hours of visual and audio stimulation (I actually buy movies). There are other factors but the bottom line is: I do demand music, but at a lower price than the RIAA is supplying at. What we are and might be seeing Alright,that’s enough about me, now the more interesting part. Now comes the guessing game that everyone is playing: What IS going to happen to Napster? Unfortunately the RIAA and groups like Metallica seem to be winning this year long legal struggle and Napster may either be forced to police their system or be shutdown entirely. None of this will help the RIAA because 64 million Napsterites won’t give up free MP3s cold turkey. Napster clones like the serverless Gnutella (in its many forms) or those that have moved offshore will turn the RIAA’s legal headaches into migraines. For the mean time Napster is being forced to block music produced by the Plaintif companies. These bans are being met with meet heavy resistance as songs by Metallica appear as songs by “Matallaca”. However, I’m sure Napster will eventually find an effective way to police its system and then its time to pick up the pieces. If Napster survives it will certainly attempt to increase its promotion of new budding artists and make deals with recording companies like Bertelsmann’s BMG in order to increase the number files available for swapping. Napster might go through with Napster II, a commercial version, of their software and charge a monthly subscription fee. Napster could also place emphasis on selling approved CD’s, art and Merchandise (maybe even concert tickets?) to consumers. What would be interesting to see Many users won’t be willing to pay to use Napster 2, and those who do will face a significantly reduced selection of songs to swap. But that’s not to say that there aren’t other possibilities. It would be interesting if Napster teamed up with the producers of Rio, MPMAN or other MP3 player devices. Napster could be used to sort out playlists ahead of time for easy transfer to an MP3 player(maybe a special edition “Napster-player?”) Since many people will obviously reject paying a subscription fee for Napster because it’s either too much hassle or just “one more bill”, Napster could team up with ISPs. ISPs like AOL Time Warner could integrate Napster into their net software. Best of all though the Napster subscription fee would be hidden in the ISP bill. This would also save families with multiple Napster users from paying multiple Napster bills (one connection, one bill regardless of the number of users). I'm sure you can think of several of your own ideas. However, this still requires the RIAA’s cooperation and since many of the RIAA’s companies are still trying to turn back the hands of time, they may not realize that letting Napster live (and possibly receiving royalties) is better than having no Napster at all. In the mean time, I’ll see you on Napster. P.S. Can you guess the RIAA and Napster webpages? http://www.riaa.com http://www.napster.com Anyway, Here’s something you might find amusing. A friend of mine was recently booted off Napster. Why? Apparently the “Barbara Orbison Music Company” didn’t like the fact that he had “Pretty Woman” in his music directory. When he told me I laughed hysterically, “That’s pretty sad” I told him, “especially since Roy’s been dead since 1988". True, the estate still owns the copyrights but it would appear to me that Roy’s peak selling years have long since passed.  |
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