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by jodi sax | february 2001 Napster is something that I, as an intellectual property lawyer, think about frequently, from a purely legal and also from a philosphical standpoint. This is a fascinating time for intellectual property lawyers as well as for the music industry in general. The very foundations upon which we have based our careers, livelihoods and, in the case of the recording artists, art, is in flux. Last week the 9th Circuit upheld its injunction against Napster. Now this decision is being revisited to limit its scope. Even scholars cannot agree how best this situation should be resolved. There are the copyright law purists, who, by the letter of the law, see that Napster is clearly in violation of existing copyright law (I agree with this). There are the public policy advocates who realize that the existing copyright system no longer serves its intended objective in the age of digital distribution, and so a new system must be developed (I agree with this too). And on the other end of the spectrum, there are what I like to call the intellectual property anarchists who don't think anybody should have an ownership interest in creative works, but that artists should be compensated by some alternate means (I have a harder time agreeing with this). With the above in mind, I asked a few musicians whom I have known and/or loved (hehe) what their thoughts are on this very topic. I found their responses fascinating! Wayne Kramer (MC5 and solo artist):  Napster and all music on the net is the new radio for today. It makes no difference to the fans, they only want to hear what they want to hear, when they want to hear it. So far there has been no proof that there is a down side to any of it. As far as the court judgments in favor of the big corporations, do you think any of that money will ever reach the hands of the artists who created the music? Not one fucking dime. Watch and see. David Lowery (Cracker / Camper van Beethovan): Napster?? well the CMJ the wire services picked up my quote calling Napster "bullshit hippy capitalism," but it actually was part of a longer not unsympathetic discussion of Napster. Napster likes to have their users write people who they deem being opposed to their service, as a result we ended up being listed as one of their enemies and our website was deluged with poorly spelled pro Napster comments. Our webmaster did some clever cgi scripts that changed the word Napster on our bulletin board to "the bullshit hippy capitalist corporation" further inflaming things. ( also a clever animation would start if you typed in the word Napster it looked like your hard drive was being reformatted). It was all in all a lot of fun, but it really made me very anti-Napster. I wrote a long piece on [Napster], there is a link to it under the "news" section on the Cracker website. Greg Graffin (Bad Religion):  Napster has done nothing for me as an artist. I don't support [Napster founder Shawn Fanning's]
tacticts, regardless of how useful the software might turn out to be in the
future, his actions have been selfish, and short sighted to say the least.
If I were to create software that allowed people to easily copy and
distribute copyrighted material, I would feel a deep sense of
responsibility to the companies I was undermining, but more importantly I
would feel a serious obligation to the artists who created the works.
Obviously, Napster doesn't feel this sense of obligation. [Fanning] is like a
sadly misguided rebel who is acting on false logic that goes something like
this: "...these artists and record companies have done nothing but rip me
off as a consumer, so fuck them!, now we can rip them off..." Without
considering the long-term effects of this behavior. What prevents the
best artists from making future works even more expensive and more
difficult to obtain? They certainly have the power to avoid doing business
with creeps like [Fanning]. It is the artist, not the consumer, not the
record company, and most importantly, not the distributer, who wields the
power in this world. On a more practical note, all the misguided computer geek had to do is show some obligation to work with artists, and he would have gone a long way toward gaining some of my respect. For instance, he could have written into his software a database that reported on a monthly basis the number of song-downloads that occurred for each artist. He could have then sent a report to the artists automatically, once a month, to alert them as to which songs were seeing the most 'action' on the web. For a band like Bad Religion, with 190 songs in our catalog, this information could be crucial when we decide how to write our set-lists each night on tour. Knowing what songs our fans want to hear is a difficult chore each night, and it gets even harder with each record we release. Napster could have included all sorts of relevant data that bands could use to foster their relationship with their fans. But I stress once again, [Fanning] is nothing more than a selfish, pseudo-intellectual who hasn't even the slightest understanding of the principles involved in creative life. Chris Ballew (Presidents of the USA / solo artist):  On Napster.....I think it is a GOOD thing. This is a glimpse of the new
business model that the music industry will settle into in the next decade
and the decentralization of the process of buying and selling music will
ultimately be positive for artists. I have a band called SUBSET with
Sir-Mix-A-Lot and we have not gotten a record together after 20 months of
effort and the 6 songs we do have finished are on Napster. I think it is
great that people are HEARING the music instead of it gathering dust on my
shelf. I don't think that people will STOP buying records yet because of
on-line music files even if they are free. THIS IS THE FUTURE AND TO DENY IT
IS TO LOCK YOURSELF INTO THE FEUDALISM OF THE OLD MAJOR LABEL SYSTEM!Rikki Rockett (Poison):  At this point people are still getting their music mainly from C.D. sales. Napster and the like are more like previews for most artists still. That's positive. However, when an MP3 type format does become the accepted, popular format for getting music, there will have to be control or no one will get paid. The fact is, I can rip an MP3 from any C.D. and have it to as many people as I want in no time, via the web. In fact, if I want to, I can get whatever I want from Hotline. I don't really think people are that pissed at Napster right now. They just want a piece. If people were really pissed, they would have been hacked by now. It's easier to hack a site than it is to fight it legally. Just goes to show ya that the net still belongs to the net and not the, Uh, umm, lawyers. We'll save the lawyers for the election! (ed. note: ok, so I'm a little bit behind in getting this article up. ;) David Was (Was [not Was] and solo artist): As for ol Nabster, as I calls it, I am betwixt a rock and a hard drink: the greedy corporate music biz -- an extension of organized crime -- and an audience sick of being stiffed. i have more sympathy for the latter than the former, but as a copyright-owning songwriter, I look forward to compensation in some form or another from such "services." No such thing as a free lunch, nor a free song, much as it seems there should be sometimes..... * * * So there you have it. Straight from the proverbial horses' mouths. I hope you found these responses as interesting as I did. Feel free to write to lawgirl with your own opinions about Napster. I would like to post them as a follow-up to this article in the future. |