Crank It Up To Eleven! 03.10.09: Revisitng Napster
Posted by Sandeep Murali on 03.10.2009
Almost ten years ago, a little piece of software byt he name of Napster initiated a revolution in the music industry. We take a look at some of the less talked aspects of it and also how the industry has progressed since then.
Hello boys 'n girls and welcome back. Last week, we talked about three incidents in music history that occurred in less than ideal fashion. This week, we shall discuss another event that drastically altered the musical landscape forever. The Napster controversy.
But the catch is, we'll be looking at it from an angle most folks haven't thought of before. But first;
Talk dirty to me:
The 70's has some feedback on last week's column: "Those are some interesting choices but I'd have to dig deeper into the archives of musical history - for instance, what if Syd Barrett had not become whacked out of his head on acid - what would that have done to Pink Floyd? And what if Freddie Mercury had not died of AIDS? So many possibilities to think about - what if Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper had never gotten on that plane? Or what if Clapton had gotten on the helicopter instead of SRV?"
Again, very interesting choices you have there too, my friend. I'd have to assume that Barett would have explored progresive rock to the extremes had he remained clean. I could see Freddie still actively performing had he been alive 'nhealthy and of course, the answers to the last two are obvious.
Bouquets, brickbats, whatever you got; throw ‘em this way. It's all good.
Sharing is caring. Or is it?
Hard to believe that almost a decade has passed since the origins of one of the most controversial episodes in music history. In June 1999, a University student by the name of Shawn Fanning created a software that made the sharing of music (Via the MP3 format, which was gaining popularity) child's play. Christened Napster, this software allowed anyone who installed it share music files on their computer with other like minded users. Napster became extremely popular and soon, millions of people were exchanging music file's like nobody's business. The first to react negatively to the service was college dorms, whose Internet services were getting bombarded by the sheer amount of traffic the service brought in. But this was only the least of Napster's worries. In a short while, the music industry, fronted by leading artists such as Metallica, Dr. Dre and Madonna sued the company on the grounds of violating IP and copyright laws. The matter was taken into court where Napster lost the case on all counts. The service was shut down, the company was forced to cough up millions as penalty and the Napster name/ logo was purchased by third parties as a front for legal music sharing portals. After a short lifespan of less than two years, Napster became a chapter in the history books.
But did it take file sharing with it to the grave? Not by a long shot.
The demise of Napster led to the vast migration of its users to alternative services such as Kazaa, Warez, Limewire etc. Many of these software companies were sued by recording industries in several nations, forced to shut down and re-open the doors as legal services (which no one bothered to check out, frankly). Noticing the trend of client based P2P services being shut down, users shifted gears to decentralized P2P technologies such as Bittorrent. At present, as can be seen from the infamous Piratebay trial, parties on both sides of the fence are still at loggerheads over the distribution of copyrighted material over the Internet. Napster is long gone, but the cultural phenomenon it introduced to the world by the name of file sharing is still alive and kicking.
This article is not aimed at unearthing the ethical aspects of file sharing. Rather, it is a look at the hows and whys of the demise of Napster. There are several unexplored avenues in the way Napter did its "Business" that the average person out there was oblivious of. And through this article, we shall see just how they dug Napster's grave even without intervention from the music industry.
The balance sheet:
Napster started out as a personal project of Fanning, who like most expert programmers pushed himself to the limits to realise a ground breaking new idea. But soon after, it became a business. Fanning's uncle made it a proper business and ran the day to day operations. As the number of users increased exponentially, Napster had to beef up their servers (which we will come to later). At the time of closure, Napster had about 50 employees on its payroll. Which brings up the question:
Where did all the money come from?
The simple answer is, there wasn't any. Napster ran a free service for every single one of their customers and the revenue from ads weren't even close to what was required to keep it running. At that rate, Napster would have shut the doors in a short while even if there was no lawsuit. Which is why the company was in talks with several names for a takeover. Which brings up another question: What IS there to be taken over?
Because aside from the infrastructure, Napster didn't have anything of its own. Everything that the company dealt with was copyrighted by someone else. To put it in simpler words, this was akin to charging an arm and leg for a sheet of paper with the unlocking combinations to a dozen odd-cash rich safes. Apart from the cost incurred for the paper and the ink you spent, nothing on it or nothing that it leads to is really yours. Look at it this way and you'll suddenly start to see the cracks in Napster's copyright free Utopia.
But we're just providing a service!
This was one of the chief defenses of Napster during the trial and funnily enough, one of the main reasons why it lost the case. Unlike modern day P2P networks that are decentralized, Napster servers actually had complete records of every single file in every single client on their network. This meant that the company could not claim to be innocent and put the blame on the users as it had the means to put a stop to copyright theft. Even if you are one of those who are firmly against the recording industry, think about this: The company had a complete record on everything in your hard drive (That you chose to share, yes. But there were thousands of not-so-enlightened users who chose to share their entire harddrives on P2P networks). By being a part of the network, you were practically putting your identity up for grabs for anyone who preferred to make a half assed effort. Ironic, considering that one of the main bones of contention that the file sharing community raises is privacy on the internet.
Napster as a "Taster" platform?
This was another point of defense for the company. The argument was that the people who check out songs on Napster do so to make sure they were worth their money and later purchase the commercial version. Even if this were true to an extent, there's a major flaw to the logic: The technology to stream MP3 media existed at the time of Napster's inception. Then why did the company design their software in such a way that the file could be downloaded in its entirety over the network? If a user was only interested in getting a "Taste", wouldn't streaming be enough for that purpose? Think about it as checking a band's songs on youtube or their myspace before buying the album in today's terms.
Metallica, the band most hated for litigating against Napster actually initiated the procedures because of one incident. The single, "I disappear" was leaked on the Napster network way before its commercial release. Madonna, an artist who was at one point actually discussing a working relationship with Napster also got ticked off for the same reason. Again, this is very different from the way say, Chinese democracy or Black ice leaked these days. Services like Piratebay are effectively mere search engines while Napster had the technology to find out exactly which computers had these songs AND the ability to prevent these files from being shared. Metallica and Dr. Dre actually provided the company with a list of users with these files. Yet, nothing was done on Napter's side and hence, the artists proceeded with the lawsuit.
Summing it up:
Evil or otherwise, Napster initiated the winds of change that altered the landscape of the music industry forever. One of the biggest lessons artists and recording companies learned through this whole ordeal was that:
- A Majority of users were simply not willing to pay for an entire album if its only a song or two that catches their attention.
- The Internet, if properly used is a powerful medium for promoting and selling music.
When Napster came to being, the industry and the consumers were far from being ready to use the Internet as a medium for transfer of music. The industry was far too sluggish, cynical and orthodox in its understanding of how the Internet and compressed formats such as MP3 can be used for selling music (And hence paved for less than legal ways to share it) while the consumers, in their search for cheap (or free) music, decided to throw their own privacy to the wind and keeping their hard drives wide open for the world to take a peek. A decade later, we have some successful, working models that pacify both the labels and the consumers:
Companies such as Apple and Amazon took note of this and soon after opened e-stores that enabled the customer to buy only the songs that he/ she wanted, at affordable prices. Of course, the half baked, ill conceived idea of DRM was implemented in the early stages of legal online music selling (And as time shows, proved to be a dismal failure at its intended purpose), but that's a whole different can 'o worms. Both the above mentioned companies (Although Apple took its sweet time jumping on the DRM-free bandwagon) are proving that money CAN be made through selling legal, shackle free electronic copies of music online. Services like Rhapsody on the other hand, provide the consumer with an option to get a taste of as much music as they want through a restricted subscription based model and an option to purchase music that they like.
Yes, Napster initiated a revolution. But it was far from an ideal solution for the problem at hand.
Never say goodbye:
Oasis is heading this way shortly, I hear. Yours truly is contemplating going down and watching the biggest UK rock band that actually plays rock music. Take that Coldplay apologists. :p
