Nabbing Napster won't stop the music

Thank God for Napster, the website that acts as a directory for people who want to share their CD collections online. Now that the Microsoft trial has been shelved for the time being, the company has spared all of us geek news addicts from suffering through a boring summer of dull marketing announcements and shelved initial public offerings.

Just as I'd feared that searching out the latest online animation for my WAP phone was going to be about as good as it got, along comes the Napster v Recording Industry Association of America trial and the Napster Senate judiciary committee hearing.

I mean, what could possibly beat the combination of rock and roll heroes of yore sitting in shirts and ties before the Washington, DC establishment? And the truly bizarre moment when Lars Ulrich, drummer for heavy metal dinosaurs Metallica, told Senator Orrin Hatch, the ultra-conservative Christian, Republican legislator from Utah: "I don't think there's any way out of this without your help".

Napster has prompted a fresh examination of online copyright issues because the site allows people to gain access to other people's music collections for free. The recording industry association and supporters argue this amounts to illegal copying of its members' intellectual property and threatens legitimate CD sales.

Napster and defenders such as Public Enemy, Courtney Love and Byrds founder Roger McGuinn say the industry association has never done much for the huge majority of artists and is only protecting its massive profits. They also argue that online music delivery is the way of the future, spurs sales by giving people the chance to listen to new genres and styles of music, and gives the artists back control that they've lost to the big corporate recording labels.

The subject is fascinating and defines the issues surrounding digital delivery of content in an understandable, accessible way.

At the centre of the debate is online trading of MP3s, the digital music file format used by most people to share music through websites like Napster and MP3.com, and programs like Gnutella, which lets people track down files offered by individuals on their home computers.

The industry association has been trying to fight this for a few years. Initially, it took the not surprisingly unpopular approach of suing individual US students with MP3 websites for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Nice one. Go after some lanky teenager rather than the largescale pirate CD and tape factories.

When, predictably, that approach failed miserably, it shifted focus to websites like Napster and MP3.com. Because the sites aggregate the users and providers of MP3s, they're bigger and easier targets. MP3.com settled one lawsuit out of court, agreeing to pay the association millions to feature some artists on its site. The Napster case has been put on hold until next week by the San Francisco judge presiding over it. In the meantime, the Senate coincidentally held hearings on the general issue, ensuring it remained in the public eye.

Interestingly, the Senate isn't much interested in legislating on the technical issues raised by the Net, according to comments made by members of the committee afterwards. Senator Hatch himself has proven to be one of the best-informed of legislators on technical issues and adeptly sieved out many of the crucial considerations from the emotional appeals and counter-appeals. He seems to want a hands-off approach.

A few facts give some perspective, as well. While artists definitely have valid concerns about online distribution, the industry association's own figures on music sales raise real doubts about its basic premise - that the free availability of music files online damages sales. In 1999, CD sales increased 11 per cent; in the first quarter of 2000 alone, they leapt 8 per cent. This period precisely mirrors the dramatic explosion of MP3s and the growth of Napster, which has a phenomenal 20 million users.

One possible resolution to some aspects of the issue are the software applications under development that enable people to put a protective wrapping around digital data sent over the Net. This would theoretically make it difficult for anyone except the purchaser of a song, video clip, picture or article to distribute it further, for example. A huge range of companies is involved in the rush to create such software - Xerox, Sony, and others. However, no-one has succeeded in getting any of these systems into general use.

But surely, creating policing software is only going to slap a plaster over a larger problem, which must be tackled in its own right.

The Internet fundamentally changes the way in which information can be collected and distributed and, because of this, raises daunting challenges to all the existing ways of policing, controlling and coralling. The Net is designed to disperse, not to contain. The entire global network is designed to let information flow around barriers, evade constriction, spread and multiply. And the Internet will not go away.

Mr Ulrich said in his testimony that he rejected the argument that musicians had to accept some new Internet-based paradigm, which he saw as an invitation to piracy and, to use his metaphor, trafficking in stolen goods.

In contrast, rock granddaddy Roger McGuinn was practical about the impossibility of turning back and instead spoke of the great personal advantages of putting hard-to-market music out to an interested public - and earning a few thousand pounds along the way - thanks to MP3.com.

The reality is that everyone in every industry has to rethink the old, pre-Internet ways of doing things and find the best ways forward. Comforting certainties are gone and litigation is in many cases just going to be a barrier that can be programmed around, as the rise of Gnutella demonstrates.

klillington@irish-times.ie