Enough Already--Napster and Music Piracy

By Tom Barnes

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Napster got ya down? MP3 givin' ya the blues? Looking down the sawed-off barrel of a digital shotgun? Fear not brother. I got your salvation.

First ask yourself what business you're in. Are you in the record business, the music business, or the entertainment business? What if you won every battle but lost the war? Would it be worth it? Napster isn't the problem. In fact don't be surprised if it's gone by the end of the year. Yup, you read me right-- dead and gone by Christmas.

Except, just like the broom in Fantasia, where the broom lies utterly destroyed, 10 take its place. Sure you've heard of Gnutella. That is just the beginning. See, it gets worse. You might know what a newsgroup is, but do you know what a peer to peer network is? Ever heard of Internet Relay Chat (IRC)? They make Napster and Gnutella look like pocket calculators. Nobody will control them or what is passed over them. Ever.

Look: no one is going to stop private citizens from exchanging data. Similarly, no one is going to stop digital duplication via MP3 or some other form of compression. An unenforceable law is worthless. The FBI is not going to prosecute hundreds of thousands of honest, upstanding, American, record-buying, kids. Forget it. So let's move on. Really. You'd better.

Because the Web and its attendant duplication technologies is the best promotion tool ever invented. Sure you've heard all this before. Continue to ignore this reality at your own peril. You'll go broke while your intellectual property lawyers grow rich off antiquated copyright law.

If you read my debate with Dan O'Day you know I'm a pragmatist. I believe in making money on the Web, too. You can, and I suppose must, fight these duplication tools with all your might. The point is you still need another plan. Reactionary lawsuits don't solve anything, and they don't create any value. They don't make your success-bloated band any cooler either. The problem is you just drive duplication and file sharing underground, making it hipper. Stop fighting and start leveraging.

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