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THE INDUSTRY STANDARD'S
B E A T S H E E T
A Weekly Report on the Convergence of Music and the Net
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| http://www.thestandard.com/ |
Tuesday, August 1, 2000
TOP STORY:
* Blinded by the Light: Grokking Napster on the Tube
NET NOISE:
* Zeropaid
BEATS:
* Survivor: Digital Music Version
Things are getting intense on this not-so-remote desert isle.
* Spam, Spam, Wonderful Spam
ShareZilla targets Gnutella with a nudge and a wink
DOT DOT DOT:
* EMI gets phone-bombed ... Nap chat falls flat ... Gnutella numbers
... more
SOUND OFF:
* What was the sharpest comment you've seen or heard regarding Napster?
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TOP STORY
~~~~~~~~~
Blinded by the Light
TV coverage of Napster puts the players in the spotlight
By Julene Snyder
Crazy times, these. MTV's Kurt Loder has become the voice of the
establishment. Chuck D's manager, Walter Leaphart, is defending
file-sharing on CNN. Metallica attorney Howard King is even feistier
than usual, and Napster's Shawn Fanning is getting more face-time on
the tube than the entire cast of "Road Rules."
In the wake of last week's injunction against Napster, which has since
been stayed by a three-judge federal appeals court, the debate over
file-sharing has become front-page news. Which means we've been
treated to the heretofore unusual sight of digital-music types
strutting their stuff on television, trying to get their point of view
across in neat sound bites while giving the public a crash course on
the issues at hand. If any publicity is good publicity, the Fatboy
Slims at Napster are sitting pretty right about now.
On Friday, CNN's "Talkback Live" was titled, "Napster: Can Trading
Music Over the Internet be Stopped?" (The answer is probably not, but
that would make for a mighty short program.) Guest host Daryn Kagan
ran it as breathlessly as an asthmatic without an inhaler. First, he
lobbed a softball to Metallica lawyer Howard King, saying: "Right now,
it looks like you've won the battle." King, with apparent prescience
(at that point the injunction hadn't been stayed), demurred. "I don't
think we've won the battle," he said. Then he lapsed into legalese
with, "The people who are responsible for creative activity have just
had validation of their rights to profit from that activity."
Leaphart, who is president of Rapstation.com in addition to managing
Chuck D, didn't let an opportunity to plug his Web site get by,
calling it a "superstation, similar on a smaller scale to what CNN
does." (Um, a much smaller scale.) Hilarity ensued when King asked
Leaphart if there was any music by Dr. Dre (another of King's clients)
on the site. "What, are you going to try to sue me?" asked Leaphart. A
flustered King didn't respond directly, but did say, oddly, that he
had no problem with the tools that Rapstation.com offers users looking
for file-sharing software.
When asked to comment on Judge Patel's ruling and whether this was new
legal territory, King assured viewers that there are laws on the books
protecting those who "create works and obtain a copyright, (giving
them) the sole right to exploit those." He stated that "there's laws
on the books. This is not a made-up law."
Meanwhile, MTV News correspondent Kurt Loder showed that he might be
falling out of touch with his viewer demographic. While "Napster is a
brilliant piece of software writing," it's nonetheless clearly based
on theft, he concluded. "I don't think any technology, no matter how
new, could supersede the moral basis of law." The
laborious-use-of-metaphor prize goes to Leaphart, who said, "The
bottom line is the genie is out of the bottle, the bottle is broke on
the ground in a million pieces and crazy glue is not going to fix it."
Speaking of MTV, Napster's Shawn Fanning sat down with VJ Chris
Connelly the day after Patel ruled against his company, wearing, of
course, his trademark baseball cap. Connelly began his hard-hitting
interview by asking whether Fanning had gotten any sleep and what he
thought about while he was lying in bed. (News flash! He didn't sleep
well! Stop the presses! He thought about the court case!)
Connelly continued by asking if it "felt like a real personal hurt on
some level." Fanning doesn't take it personally (thank God), but he
did say that he thinks that Napster users are "the ones being
attacked." On the whole, Fanning did a respectable job in the camera's
glare, concluding the interview by saying that "file-sharing is kind
of what the Internet was created to do ... Napster itself is sort of
based on many existing technologies ... it's obviously something
that people really like. It's something that will continue to exist."
For complete Napster coverage, see
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,17173,00.html?nl=bts
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NET NOISE
~~~~~~~~~
Zeropaid
Well, well, what have we here? A "file-sharing portal" that can meet
the endless needs of everybody from brand-spanking newbies to jaded
early adopters and somehow manages to present it neatly wrapped with a
floppy bow. Zeropaid has got it all: Sections on Scour, Napster,
FreeNet and Gnutella, with easily navigable menus that make it a snap
to get the latest news, a breeze to download software with ease and
even somewhat engaging to peruse hugely detailed FAQs. Message boards
offer up commentary, pointers, tips and help, with a distinctly
anarchic - or is that thieving? - flavor. Don't expect much deep
philosophizing, but you will find all the tools you need to try out
these newfangled file-sharing programs without wiping out your hard
drive or inadvertently sharing those racy photos with an ever-growing
army of file-swapping fiends.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
BEATS
~~~~~
Survivor: Digital Music Version
Upset with the way Napstermania has eclipsed them in the headlines,
the cast of "Survivor" has decided to tape a new series. Only this
time, they won't be eating cooked rodents; instead, the contestants,
by now seasoned performers, will play real-life figures.
We illegally obtained a list of rules and characters. Feel free to
share with friends.
Adventure! Piracy! Fame! It's all happening on Survivor: Digital Music
Version.
The prize: Untold millions from consumers of digital music.
The consequences: Loss of credibility, fans and potential royalties.
Our host: Judge Marilyn Patel. She's a smarter than Jeff Probst. For
whatever that's worth.
Shawn Fanning: Certainly will be played by Colleen, the winsome young
thing that just may go all the way for the big prize. Since she's a
hottie, fame may stay with her, not unlike the Napster wunderkind,
who's bound to come out smelling like a rose no matter what.
Hilary Rosen: Tough-talking truck-driver Susan is an excellent choice.
Both are muscle-flexing babes who brook no nonsense.
The Big Five: Ex-Navy SEAL Rudy, with his dreams of past glory and
hopelessly unhip point-of-view is a perfect fit.
Lars Ulrich: Richard, of course. The Machiavellian who doesn't quite
know when to keep his mouth shut and his emotions under wraps is
rather similar to Ulrich, who doesn't seem to understand why it's
uncool to sue your fans when you're already richer than God.
Napster Users: Lazy Gervase, who manages to stay on the island week
after week against all odds, fits the bill. Users happily downloading
songs for free don't really care about anything but a bit of immunity,
do they?
Michael Robertson: An unkind pen would cast Sean, the doctor with the
plan to make no enemies by casting his votes for expulsion in
alphabetical order, as the MP3.com CEO. But that would be wrong, and
the producers want everything kept above board. This is TV, after all.
Spam, Spam, Wonderful Spam
ShareZilla targets Gnutella with a nudge and a wink
At first glance, ShareZilla (http://www.flatplanet.net/) looks like a
joke, but Gnutella's Gene Kan isn't laughing. "ShareZilla is a
commercial enterprise whose sole existence is to inhibit access to the
Gnutella network by way of spam," he wrote via e-mail. No punches are
pulled in the site's own description of the software's aim:
"ShareZilla is a quick, cheap, and easy way to promote your products,
services and web-sites across the latest and greatest thing on the
Internet: Gnutella. ShareZilla intercepts every Gnutella search that
comes across its network horizon and re-transmits an ad back to the
person originating the request." In other words, a concentrated attack
of spam for just $49.95 (for a few bucks more, you can get a version
that will be automatically updated every time the "fine folks at
Gnutella find a way to filter ShareZilla"). "I've been giving it some
thought, and I imagine the market will work itself out in this case,"
says Kan. Still, he allows that "ShareZilla could well make Gnutella
totally unusable. But then, ShareZilla would be worthless. So there is
some balance there, and it will find itself."
DOT DOT DOT
~~~~~~~~~~~~
EMI gets phone-bombed ... Nap chat falls flat ... Gnutella
numbers
Calls to the main switchboard of EMI yesterday were answered with the
following message: "We apologize if you are having problems getting
through to the person you're trying to reach. Due to the recent
campaign of an organization that is unhappy with the U.S. judicial
process, our main switchboard has been flooded to the point that your
call can't go through. Until we can resolve this technical problem, we
can only ask for your patience and understanding." ... In the
Napster chat rooms late in the day on Friday, users were passing the
time between downloads by trading bons mots along the lines of "shut
up!" and "where are you?" When informed that a stay had been granted
and that file-swapping wouldn't cease at midnight after all, one would
have expected a virtual celebration to break out. But trying to
convince people it was true was trickier than you'd think. "Where'd
you hear that?" "Bealieve what u want i seen the court case" and "I
don't believe you" were a few of the gentler comments lobbed at anyone
trying to share the seemingly good news. Presumably, they've since
been convinced. ... As expected, numbers jumped dramatically at the
main Gnutella portal (http://gnutella.wego.com/) on Friday. According
to Karen Lim, Wego's senior director of corporate communications,
Friday's traffic was the heaviest for the site by far, with
approximately 4.7 million hits. The site went down for about four
hours the day before because "we simply ran out of bandwidth," says
Lim, but they've since increased bandwidth tenfold to deal with the
influx of new traffic. ... The headline writers at Hits Daily
Double have cracked us up with a sly dig above a piece on Universal's
plan to start offering digital downloads this week: "Step One: Teach
Record Execs How To Turn On Their Own Computers."
SOUND OFF
~~~~~~~~~
This week's question: What was the sharpest comment you've seen or
heard regarding Napster?
E-mail your opinions to julene@well.com with "sound off" in the
subject line, and we'll print a selection of the responses in next
week's newsletter. Letters may be edited for clarity and length, so
keep them short and include your name and affiliation, if any.
FEEDBACK: Last week's question: Is the concept of copyright obsolete?
Of course it is. The proof is in the word itself. Nowadays people
think the word "copyright" means "the right to copy as many files as
you can." I know I do.
- Brett Wagner
No, absolutely not - it's just on a vacation at the moment! But the
future of copyright is secure because it has to be; without copyright,
artists don't get paid, labels don't get paid and the incentive for
creating any material that needs to be copyrighted is eliminated. But,
new DRM software systems such as those from InterTrust and payment
facilities by companies like Magex and others will mean that the
online and hard-copy distribution of digital material is copyright
protected ... forever.
- Jack Vorner
U.K.
I don't think the concept of copyright has become obsolete. I just
think we are redefining what stealing means. Variable morality serves
the public very well these days in that if we want to do something
that is currently not acceptable, we just change what is acceptable.
This is not an issue of free speech. Someone has the "right-to-copy" a
creation (which took quite a bit of time and effort by the way) and
anyone who wants to copy this needs to get approval from the copyright
owner (and pay a fee). Does this now mean that patents will go out the
window too? We want something, and we don't want to pay for it. If you
don't want to pay for it, find another source of entertainment that is
free.
- David Sterling
Software developer
Aspect Communications
The fact that technology has enabled the circumvention of a class of
property right does not make the concept of that property right
obsolete, just vulnerable. Last century, barbed wire made it possible
for sheep ranchers in the West to appropriate the land of cattle
ranchers for their own use. Was the right to own real property
obsolete because of this infringement? Maybe, but there was no
alternative to the concept of land ownership to replace it. So,
someone thought up wire cutters. Just as technology has enabled the
infringement of copyright, it can also be used to re-establish the
control of copyright by rightful owners.
- David Gales
iDealmusic
Just because theft can't be prevented doesn't mean it should be
accepted. The Internet's ability to increase distribution benefits
creators (hello, Stephen King), but it also makes it more difficult to
project intellectual property rights. Copies of upcoming scripts are
floating around the Internet. If the concept of copyright is obsolete,
then can anyone take one of those scripts and produce a film? If you
think you should have the right to trade Metallica MP3s, should
DreamWorks be able to take its unreleased demos and sell them? It may
be more difficult to protect copyright, and you may want to figure out
new ways to get paid for your work, but creators will always want and
need the protection of copyright.
- Paul Jay Rodriguez
The Pop View: The Journal of Popular Culture
STAFF
~~~~~
Written by Julene Snyder. Send news tips and press releases to
julene@well.com.
Edited by Steven Zeitchik (szeitchik@thestandard.com).
Copyedited by Elese Veeh (eveeh@thestandard.com).
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