by Michael A Kazanjian
a&e editor
Napster’s reign may finally come to end. The popular music-sharing site was ordered on Monday, March 5 to start weeding out any copyrighted materials from its database. After months of court proceedings and appeals, the Recording Industry Association of America found part of the victory that they were seeking for. A court order stated that the major record labels must provide Napster with lists of songs that they do not want put on the server. Hilary Rosen, president of the RIAA, said the company would comply with the court’s order. “We intend to provide the notifications prescribed by the court expeditiously, and look forward to the end of Napster’s infringing activity.”
Already Napster users are looking for ways around this order by misspelling the titles of songs and the names of the artists in hopes of keeping the songs on the site alive. Napster users have already done this in order to post songs by Metallica who headed the crusade to bring Napster down. Napster, however, is allowed to be host to materials not copyrighted and to artists who appear on small independent labels. It is unclear as of now if users will have to pay a monthly access fee to download songs.
With Napster’s fate looming, college students in dorms across America have begun frantically searching the Internet for a Napster alternative. Sharing MP3 files goes back before Napster’s time, the only difference was that there was much more pointing, clicking and searching going on before one could find their song of choice. But just like any other good idea out there, Napster has many clones. Some of these clones are far scarier to the entertainment industry than Napster could ever be.
Gnutella.com is a file-sharing site that offers everything from current radio hits to this weekend’s movie box-office sensation. Freenet.com offers the same type of service but in a very disguised way, which makes it a bit clumsy to search, in order to avoid any legal issues for as long as they can. The Motion Picture Association of America has yet to make a statement about movie swapping on the web because it is not yet a major threat to the industry. These types of mega movie downloads are also not very accessible for the average user. A 40GB hard drive, for instance, can only hold up to 10 feature length films, and the download times, even on the college-equipped T1 lines, can take several hours. Sticking to songs only, Napigator provides access to millions of songs and runs on very similar lines to Napster. Audiogalaxy.com also offers songs from Rebop to the Jackson Five.
Copyright laws are not the same across the globe. IMesh.com is a Napster-like program that you must download first before sharing files but the main server is in Israel where copyright laws are very lenient. Expect many more programs coming from outside the U.S. very soon.
Optimism still remains for Napster fans who are pleading for the site to remain online sticking to their claim that Napster opens consumer’s ears to music that would otherwise go unheard, therefore creating more sales for record labels. The recording industry releases about 37,000 albums year, most of which go unheard on airwaves and in homes across America and Napster gives these artists a chance to be heard.
For now, the estimated 12 million Napster users will have to find a way to survive and rest assure that it won’t be long until something else takes its place.
