College students and free music junkies everywhere are in a state of panic. Napster’s days seem numbered after Monday’s court ruling.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the service must prevent users from accessing copyrighted material. Napster officials have said a ruling like this could shut them down.
The service will be allowed to stay in business until the judge rewrites her decision, but that doesn’t leave much time. Let the mourning begin.
I’m not a particularly die-hard Napster user, but I’ve downloaded quite a collection through the service. And although I got along fine before I even knew Napster existed, now that I have it, I’m not so willing to live without it.
Napster is my previewing service, my access to the rarities I can’t always find at the music stores or hear on the radio. I’m not one to download an entire album to burn onto a CD. To me, nothing beats having the real thing. I take too much pleasure in studying the liner notes for pictures, guest appearances, thank-yous and lyrics. It’s just not the same when you print out a song list and put it in a jewel case yourself.
But Napster is a great way for me to get those one-hit wonders I would probably never buy the entire album for. It’s also a great place to get that exclusive live acoustic appearance from my favorite band no one’s ever heard of. It’s a way for me to listen to more of a band’s work to decide if my limited budget can spare $15 for a CD I’m actually going to listen to more than once.
Where else could I have gotten “Walkin’ Round in Women’s Underwear,” Our Lady Peace’s “Thief” live at the Much Music studios and Jonny Lang’s cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black” in such a convenient manner?
I think what upsets me the most about the whole Napster debacle is not all the songs I won’t be able to get to, but the people who are whining about it. The record industry doesn’t seem to be going under now that Napster and other services have hit the modem lines. And I don’t see the artists who are complaining starving on the streets, either.
Metallica is an obvious target. To my knowledge, I haven’t heard about any lag in album or ticket sales since Napster hit, nor have I heard reports that Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich and company have had to sell their mansions to live in a two-room shack because they can’t pay the bills.
Can Metallica even give a concrete amount of money it’s supposedly losing because of Napster? Even if it could, I have to ask myself: Is that really hurting its massive income? And if it is, why should I care? Metallica brings in more each year than I’ll probably make in a lifetime as a journalist. If it loses a million or two, I’m not going to cry for it.
I also don’t see how the mix CDs I’ve made from MP3s are much different from the copying and taping from the radio that has gone on for years. Maybe copying in the past was justified by knowing someone bought it at one point. Still, with Napster, most of the songs on the network were paid for by a user somewhere. Many songs that are downloaded have already been released on the radio. The industry has already put it out there for me to listen to for free.
Why should I pay to download it?
Once upon a time, when cassette tapes were the new technology, the record industry had a conniption because it was worried the easy recordability of tapes would increase piracy. All the copies I made of friends’ CDs and the radio barely made a dent in the record industry’s revenue. What makes it think Napster will do any more damage? Sure, Napster allows for a wider distribution, but not every user is going to download every song. There’s too much out there to make a difference.
Has the record industry stopped to think it may be losing money by shutting down Napster? The marketing capabilities of something like Napster are incomprehensible. Sure, the radio serves the same purpose, but there is more to artists than what their record company deems a “single.”
Many times the best songs on an album are never released as a single. If the singles can’t sell the album, maybe those other songs could.
Often record buyers are so disappointed with a one-hit wonder’s album they ignore the group’s follow-up attempts. Napster gives fans a free opportunity to give bands a second chance. The record industry could be passing up a lot of sales by cutting off consumers’ chances to preview before they buy.
Besides my obvious bias as a poor college student who will defend almost any form of free music, I really don’t see why the industry is bothering. It’s fighting a losing battle. For every Napster it shuts down, there’s a handful of copycat services waiting for those left without an MP3 fix.
Instead of wasting money on court battles, the industry could better spend its time figuring out a way to work with online services like Napster.
And all those free music junkies won’t have to go through withdrawals.
Michonne Omo, State News opinion writer, will download every song from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” before Napster is shut down. E-mail her at omomicho@msu.edu.
