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FROM THE
EDITOR |
FEBRUARY
1, 2001 ISSUE |
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Is
Napster Any Different? - It Should Be! |
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BY
ROBERT DENNIS |
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| I am writing this editorial just after
the March 3rd announcement by Napster.com
that it will begin "blocking" downloading of copywritten
material ("One Million Titles"). While I am
writing it, I am listening to my personal Napster
playlist. |
| Having been a professional in the music
& recording industry for 37 years possibly gives me an ability
to put this Napster controversy in proper perspective. |
| In The 60's |
| As the decade turned to the 60's I was
in high school. Music was a very important part of my
life. In the car and at home, I had the radio on. It
was tuned to 800 kHz, AM, known in the Detroit area as "The
Big 8." The call letters were CKLW, which was the
biggest "top 40" station in mid-central US. It was
a Canadian station that didn't have the same power restrictions as
stations had in the US. As a result, their signal
reached as South as Cincinnati, as East as Philadelphia and as
West as Chicago. This was the station that made the Motown
artists popular. Most of us never tuned our radios to any other
station. |
| The point was that I listened to music
at any opportunity, while driving, while at home doing
homework. When I heard a song that I fell in love with I
went out and bought the single of it. Sometimes, but not often, I
would buy Lp's. I was able to "program" my
listening to music by using a record changer and single
records. |
| In the 80's |
| As the decade turned to the 80's my
oldest son was in high school. Music was a very important
part of his life. He would listen to radio but to several FM
stations. Button pushing between stations was normal. |
| At home he would "program"
what he listened to with a cassette recorder. He would have
tapes of records. The tapes were made from his records and
from records he "borrowed" from friends. He would
just record the cuts he liked from both Lp's and from
singles. He could fit three or four Lp's on a tape because
he didn't like every cut and didn't want tunes he didn't like on
the recording. |
| The Supreme Court had ruled that making
a copy of a recording you owned, "for your own personal
use" was legal. It was OK to make a copy of an Lp to
play in your car. It was OK to record an hour or two off of
radio and replay it for yourself later. But the kids of the
world extended this into swapping records and copying records onto
tape for friends. This kind of copying was not legal but
impossible to control and therefore became very
widespread. |
| In The New Millennium |
| Today music is very important to the
youth. If a teenager is caught in a car without a tape or a CD,
they listen to the radio with almost frantic button
pushing. |
| At home they have the choice between
cassettes, CD's and Napster. Most have access to computers
and to the Internet. With Napster, they have the ultimate of
"borrowing" music to copy and "programming"
their listening. The high tech of the computer and Internet
age means that people can now do what they have been doing for
decades more easily. |
|
Human Nature |
| After an "accepted" (although
"illegal") mode of operation for decades, do you really expect them
to change? Much more likely is that people will make copies
of released product with or without Napster. There's always
the cassette, there's newer recording medium and there will be
more "pirate" sites on the Internet that will illegally
distribute music for copying. If Napster is shut down there
will be an explosion in illegal sites allowing copying of released
music. |
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Getting Paid |
| Of course the reason that there is such
a controversy is that people like record companies, songwriters
and performing artists don't get paid off of illegal copies.
The present copyright laws protect the record companies and the
songwriters, making sure each get paid when there is a
"sale" of the product. |
| Unfortunately present law doesn't do so
well for recording artists. Recording artists get paid
royalties off of "full-price" sales of recorded music
but seldom get paid off of "discounted" sales in record
clubs or in the many re-releases of oldie compilations.
There are many recording artists that, for one reason or another,
don't do many personal appearances and live a life that's pretty
low-class. The fact that you can turn on a radio and hear
them perform any hour of the day does not contribute to their
personal wealth. |
| I'm for a solution in the Napster
matter that means people who made the record get some kind of
pay. This means the record company, the songwriter and the
recording artist. It is technically possible and even
"offered" by Napster as a solution. |
| The Napster Offer |
| What Napster can do is install software
that monitors which tunes are downloaded. It then offered to
pay record companies 1 Billion Dollars ($1,000,000,000) over 5
years off of fees collected for the downloads of users. What
does this mean? |
| It means to me that people will be able
to legally do what they are going to do anyway. It means
that copyright owners will actually get payments for this copying
activity that is going to take place anyway. It should mean
that recording artists can start getting paid for their
performances that remain popular for decades. |
| The amount of money that Napster
offered is roughly twice what is paid by large record clubs.
In other words, it is not an insignificant offer. |
| The bottom line is that I feel that the
offer should be accepted after only brief negotiations.
Teenagers in High School will be glad to pay about a buck a week
for the ability to copy and custom-program, their listening of
music. |
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Where Will It End? |
| Unfortunately the laws don't support
Napster's offer. A ruling by courts is very likely to be
against any such Napster offer, because owners of the works have
to agree to such a plan. What actually is needed is new law
that gives companies like Napster, the right to facilitate copying
of anyone's sold material, providing it pay a fee (a royalty) for
such use of the material. A majority of the public wants it,
so there is a good basis for positive legislation on this
matter. |
| What Do You Think? |
| I think it is really important that our
representatives in congress know exactly how we feel about this
situation. At the Napster.com
site there is a simple way to get the e-mail address of your
representatives in Washington by entering your zip
code. If your views are similar to mine, feel free to
link this editorial or feel free to copy and paste text from it
also. Let's try and keep the positive attributes of Napster
and find reasonable solutions to turn any negative aspect towards
the positive. |
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Copyright © 2001, by
Robert Dennis, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED |
Published in Recording
Engineer's Quarterly and Alexander magazines with permission |
USE OF THIS ARTICLE SUBJECT TO USER AGREEMENT |
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