Re: More on Napster

[Øivind Idsø <ezueled@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

anechoic wrote:

> yesterday Napster was ordered to shut down its operations...what do the
> people on this list think about this?

There's a lot to be said about this, actually, but just a few superficial
notes on the subject (I'm sure there are objections):

* the most annoying part of the RIAA/Lars Ulrich argument is "we're losing
money". They aren't, of course. The free market (pun intended) that arises
out of the Napster platform is a market based on exactly that: it's free. In
other words, if people were interested in the music they're downloading, but
had to pay for it, a very large part of this market would be
erased...because people can't afford to be part of it. And so the market
that RIAA wants to exploit for even greater profit margins would evaporate
by the very move that's supposed to eliminate and compensate for their
so-called 'losses'...together with the marketing effect that the Napster
community represents, or might represent.

* analogies are very popular within the MP3 discourse, and one of the most
common is: "Downloading from Napster is just like walking into a record
store and stealing a CD." The correct analogy should be: "Downloading from
Napster is just like walking into a record store to borrow a CD, go home and
copy it, and then return the original to the store about one hour later."
The implications of the difference between these two analogies is quite
fundamental; the first one ignores the non-materiality of MP3 sharing, while
the second one acknowledges it. This kind of stealing is quite different
from stealing a pack of cigarette, I think, since you're stealing what we
today call "intellectual property" -- and just that. This is where the
discussion concerning said intellectual property, what it is, who should own
how much of it etc. begins.

* (un)necessary elaboration on the above: once a clone of a CD has been
made, the thing that's being stolen is the artist's profit and the
production costs for the recording. The jewel case, distribution, the disc
itself, the profit margins of the label, the many channels/middle men
between production and retail, the cover art etc. is still intact and hasn't
been touched by the MP3 pirate (promotion is a grey area :) .

*  once the music has been liberated from corporate conglomeracy it should
be possible to design a kind of pay-pr-download interface; since everything
else besides recording costs (in the case of home recording this factor is
very often very small) and artists profit has been eliminated the price pr.
CD should be reduced drastically. I would gladly pay fx. $3-4 pr. CD, which
makes for a considerable (potential) income for most artists as compared to
the average royalty % s/he receives today -- pay with VISA, download, burn
the CD yourself. Sidebar: the normal price for a CD in Norway is $22. Of
course your average teenager/student/whatever can't afford to buy several
CDs a month (like s/he wants to) with a price like that.

* Napster has been quite useful for tracking down recordings that aren't
easily available anymore

* Lars Ulrich in a BBC interview concerning Napster, sitting in front of his
gigantic pool, saying "we're losing money". Again: they aren't. They're
losing an audience. Big difference. Lars should care.

* maybe this is Utopia speaking from deep within my idealistic self, but
still: knowing that the tens of thousands of people that were downloading
"my latest CD" (yes, this is definitely Utopia speaking) for free via
Napster would NOT get to listen to it if they had to pay $22, I would go for
the Napster part. Are we making music first and foremost to make money, or
are we making music first and foremost to (in lack of a better word)
'communicate'? This is naive, I know, but still; why is that you don't
charge your friends for a copy of your own music?

> personally I think its really sad...

Me too.

/Øivind/