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*                                                            * 
*                         CYBERSPACE                         * 
*         A biweekly column on net culture appearing         * 
*                in the Toronto Sunday Sun                   * 
*                                                            * 
* Copyright 2000 Karl Mamer                                  * 
* Free for online distribution                               * 
* All Rights Reserved                                        * 
* Direct comments and questions to:                          * 
*                                         * 
*                                                            * 
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MP3 for the Devil

MP3.com had a good idea. Imagine being able to listen to your 
CD collection anywhere you want without having to lug around 
two hundred CDs. How many times do you get to work and think 
"darn this rain makes me want to fire up Sarah McLachlan's 
/Solace/ and veg out with a steaming mug of coffee"? But, alas, 
you left /Solace/ at home...

MP3.com, the largest distributor of indie MP3 sound files, 
created a clever work around. It released a piece of software 
called Beam-It. At home you launch Beam-It and place your CD 
into your computer's drive. Beam-It verifies the CD is a legit 
copy and registers your ownership at its my.mp3.com site. At 
work, you log on to the my.mp3.com site.  From there, you can 
access and play MP3.com's own digital copies of the songs you 
technically own.

MP3.com thought this was a remarkable innovation. The music 
industry thought this was a crime, believing MP3.com's 
unauthorized copying of 45,000 commercial CDs and 
redistribution of those tunes was in violation of the Copyright 
Act.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed a 
lawsuit in January 2000. On April 28, a New York court sided 
with the RIAA and issued a judgment against MP3.com.

MP3.com argued that it wasn't violating artists' rights to 
profit from their work. The person downloading the song from 
the site was the legitimate owner of the CD. It's not a 
violation of the Copyright Act to make your own mix tapes or 
rip songs from the CD and dump them on your hard drive at work. 
MP3.com merely acts as a middle man, enabling consumers to 
access their music in new ways.

RIAA didn't buy this dodge. A judge agreed that MP3.com simply 
could not take copyrighted works, make duplicates of them, and 
distribute them in any manner without authorization. 

Despite the court ruling, many applaud MP3.com's attempts to 
create a world where net users can get music on demand and 
artists' rights to profit from their works are respected.

While the suit was being fought over, MP3.com urged the RIAA 
not to stick its head in the sand and ignore reality. Consumers 
will use technology to leap frog the music industry's seemingly 
plodding attempts at coming to terms with the net's potential 
and perils.

The RIAA's victory over MP3.com is also a very loud shot over 
the bow of Napster (www.napster.com). RIAA is also going after 
the net's most popular system for swapping MP3 files.

As I noted in my last installment of Cyberspace, Napster is a 
utility that links up the MP3 music collections of thousands of 
users. At the heart of the Napster utility is Napster's own 
servers. The servers link users together, builds directory 
lists (but not copies) of available files, and allow swapping 
of files. 

Under Napster's terms of use, it's the user's responsibility to 
comply with copyright laws. Unlike MP3.com, Napster doesn't 
make duplicates of copyrighted material. Certainly illegal 
material passes through its servers, but lots of illegal 
material gets passed over Bell's phone lines. You can't sue 
Bell.

While Napster can defend itself on well-established common 
carrier laws, the RIAA argues Napster's raison d'etre is to 
facilitate the distribution of copyrighted material. In the US, 
you cannot market a device designed for the sole purpose of 
aiding in crime. However, the US Supreme court ruled in 1984 
that a technology can't be outlawed if, in the face of its 
intended legitimate purpose, users have found illegal ways to 
use it. This ruling is the reason why we have VCRs with record 
buttons today.

The RIAA might be able to argue that since the vast amount of 
files traded using Napster are illegal, it defies common sense 
that the system is designed for anything other than illegal 
purposes.

If the RIAA takes down Napster, it has more problems on the 
horizon. A program called Gnutella (www.gnutella.com) takes the 
Napster model to its ultimate conclusion. Instead of allowing 
users to share and search for music files, Gnutella lets users 
make any kind of file available.

You can use Gnutella to make anything from your scanned in 
photo album to your Star Trek fan fiction available. Of course 
you can use it to swap MP3 files. Even more frightening to 
publishers of all stripes, there's nothing preventing someone 
from putting an image of a Windows 2000 install CD or a hacked 
copy of  /The Phantom Menace/ DVD.

While Napster may be only useful for illegal swapping, Gnutella 
has remarkable potential for legitimate use. It would be nice 
to be able to access my home computer's hard drive from my 
girlfriend's laptop in Borneo and show her my baby pictures. 
But, hey, tell that to a judge.


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* Update May 15, 2000 *
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RE NAPSTER

Napster is being sued by the heavy metal band Metallica as 
well. Metallica is experiencing a backlash from its fan base. 
There's a pretty amusing send up located here:

http://208.55.130.93/cartoons/napsterbad/index.html

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