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Volume 1 (1999/2000) Volume 2 (2000/2001) Volume 3 (2001) Categories
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The Napster DebateConor O'CallaghanFor those of you who have the Internet many of you may be familiar with the Napster Music Community. It is an ever-growing community of users that can log on to this free service and download almost any song. Shawn Fanning, a 20-year-old Irish-American college student from Massachusetts, invented this free service. He and his friends saw the need for a service that was free and did not involve the hassle of credit cards. Fanning bought his first computer four years ago and began to study computer manuals and programming instead of college textbooks. He had by now set up a website and, once the site began to develop, his uncle encouraged him to pursue this idea. Fanning left college and moved to Silicon Valley to continue developing his site. Napster's online community is growing in population everyday and, at present, over 57 million people are registered for this service. Users can download a program for free that allows users to transfer song files between users. Those who are logged onto this service can permit or deny the download of songs from their own computer. There are few songs that cannot be obtained as there are on average 1.6 million users logged onto the service at any given time. These music files are downloaded in MP3 format, which are relatively small in size and can be transferred quickly. These can then be played on a standard Media Player on the computer itself. These files can also be transferred to special compact units designed to play this format. This format has a distinct advantage over CDs as they don’t skip or scratch. Moreover, they can be compressed to allow certain players to store up to 150 albums a time. However, this technology is expensive and is not yet widespread. MP3 portable players range from £110 - £330. These files can also be converted to fit on audio CDs but this also involves the use of expensive laser writing technology. Fanning's invention has not been a total success. Within the last year many artists have attacked the Napster service. Metallica brought a case against the Napster Company and tried to shut down the service. Many artists believed that free file-sharing will be the downfall of the music industry and legal challenges continue. Napster claims that the service was put in place to promote new bands (which it does do!) and has recently prohibited authorising the transfer of songs registered to major record labels. Some artists appreciate the spread of music through this free service believing that the distribution of a new single on the service is useful. In December 2000 the Northern Ireland band 'Ash' launched their new single on the Internet before it hit the shelves of the major record stores across the country. U2 also favour this service. They believe that this service should continue if the company makes no profit, "as long as people are using their computers for music, and not playing mindless computer games that’s good as long as no one is making money from the process!" (Bono commenting on 'The Edge') However, this music revolution may not last forever and Napster intends to introduce fees in early June. In my opinion the current users will not greet these proposed fees gladly as Napster was developed by a student for all students that could not afford to buy CDs. Many of the current members supported Napster by writing letters that were used in court cases. I feel that the introduction of such fees would be ridiculous and wrong as the dedicated members of the community who saved it from closure are now being shunned. The Napster revolution has had and will continue to have a profound effect on the music industry, we can only hope that it will continue to offer its free service for many years to come. |