Music for Nothing - music on the Internet

Reason, Oct, 2000 by Jesse Walker

The Gnutella community may yet overcome such problems. And if not, they still might be solved by yet another program, Freenet, that's being developed by an Irish coder named Ian Clarke and the usual network of open-source geeks. Freenet promises far more autonomy and anonymity than are available now. It will be "completely decentralized, meaning that there is no person, computer, or organisation in control of Freenet or essential to its operation," the project's home page (freenet.sourceforge.net) explains. "This means that Freenet cannot be attacked like centralized peer-to-peer systems such as Napster." It also "learns to route requests more efficiently, automatically mirrors popular data, makes network flooding almost impossible, and moves data to where it is in greatest demand," thus solving some of the problems posed by Gnutella.

Freenet is still in its early stages of development, but it's already inspiring a lot of hand wringing. And with yet more lawsuit-proof programs undoubtedly on the way, one has to wonder whether the RIAA's legal strategy is sustainable in the long run. It might make more sense for the labels to ask whether such programs' popularity represents unmet demand.

Can the Man Bust Our Music?

Assume, for the sake of argument, that the industry's charges are true: that copying really is stealing, and that Napster is merely a giant burglary machine. Why, then, have so many people used it anyway? It is a matter of faith in some circles that America is undergoing a massive moral decline, but in fact, people don't seem more prone to stealing now than in the past. Indeed, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, property crime has been declining for more than 20 years. Why would someone who won't shoplift be more likely to use a file-swapping program?

The cynical answer is: Because he can. That is, given a choice between getting music for free or paying for it, people will take the freebie, especially if there's little risk involved. Obviously, there's some truth to this.

The most common answer among Napster's defenders is: So he can sample music before he buys it. There's some truth to this as well. Radio, constrained by narrow, boring formats, ignores the vast majority of music being made.

Even hit songs are served up when the schedule dictates it, not when the listener wants to hear them.

With little more than anecdotal evidence to go by--there's been no shortage of studies on the subject, but they've reached radically different conclusions, and most have obvious flaws--it's unclear how many users see Napster as a substitute for the CD store and how many see it as a substitute for radio. It's clear, though, that both species of listener exist. And for whatever it's worth--not much, probably, given that Napster use isn't widespread enough to make a difference yet--music sales have continued to increase since the program debuted.

Indeed, file trading may be a much bigger threat to the broadcast business than it is to the recording industry. Even as CD sales are going up, radio audiences have been shrinking. With online file trading emerging as a workable alternative to traditional radio, the latter trend may well continue. Napster may not offer the spontaneity and serendipity that's possible on radio--but these days, most radio stations don't either.