Three Way Tag Team Wrestling Match

Napster Fights For It's Life

Music Fans-Napster Users Will Determine Outcome

Napster is fighting for its life against the powerful Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and it's reigning world champion, Hilary Rosen the RIAA's chief executive. The venue is the court of Referee Judge Marilyn Patel. In Friday's Main Event, Napster told Referee Patel that it will body slam any individual who attempts to trade illegally copied songs on its Web site beginning this weekend.

Challenger David Boies sprung the move early in the match. Attorney Boies offered the screening system as a quick fix to keep Napster open as it faces a copyright infringement suit. Caught by surprise, the proposal temporarily stunned champion Rosen, who spent the rest of the match trying to recover.

Suddenly the match centered on how Napster would protect its system and whether Napster or the RIAA bears the burden of determining which songs should be barred. The RIAA felt that blocking the trading of the Billboard Top 100 singles and Top 200 albums would make a good start. Of course Napster would also have to keep policing its system and keep those lists current. In addition the RIAA delivered titles of about 6,500 copyrighted songs. Ultimately the screening system might need to block up to 1 million songs.

the WIZARD wonders what might happen if certain artists demanded their songs be "available on the system."

After the hearing, Hilary Rosen told reporters that Napster’s filtering system "has the potential to be effective, but we’ll see."

Napster has two major hurdles to overcome. First, Judge Patel must be convinced that Napster’s screening system will keep rabid users from sharing pirated songs. Second, and much more important, it must convince the "third man in the ring," the Napster user, to cooperate and comply with the rules.

If Napster does implement the new operating system this weekend, it is likely that Napster users will immediately begin to try to circumvent the system.

No one is more devious that a determined 13 year old. There is simply no way that Napster can know what the contents of a file might be. Napster's chat rooms are already wide open. Napster can screen is the text of the file name. A simple and very childish encrypt ion system could easily fool the software. Anybody could encrypt a different name. Just use your Buck Roger's decoder ring to determine the real title of the song.

Apart from its offer to screen pirated songs, one of Napster’s last hopes lies with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Last Friday Napster petitioned the appeals court for a full-panel hearing. So far the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals hasn’t scheduled a vote on whether to uphold the panel’s decision or to hold another hearing. The court of appeals has 21 business days to respond, but there’s no certainty they will hear the appeal.

Patel did not issue a new injunction Friday, but it could come at any time. Regardless of the effect of the injunction, Napster still faces a Superior Court trial, which might not happen for another six months.

Napster tested another patented wrestling move early this week: bribery. Napster offered to guarantee record companies $1 billion in payments from music downloads over the next five years. The money would come from members paying from $4.95 to $9.95 a month the right to trade.

However, the recording industry was ready for this move. After all, money is their "home court advantage." Today recordings amount to a $40 billion-a-year business. Executives acted like $1 billion was a mere pittance that couldn’t cover the potential for lost CD sales.

In reality, the major record labels are busily developing their own digital music services. However, their early efforts have show all the promise of a dead, rotting pig. This is not surprising for an industry comprised mainly of vultures. Can't anyone in the RIAA spell "focus group?"

In Napster, fans are drawn to the nearly complete library of songs, music from concerts, old television commercials, sound bites, out of print vinyl records, and music literally taped from the radio. In theory, if the industry were to accept Napster's proposal, this material would still be available.

the WIZARD has hopes for the Napster proposal, especially is some independents and strong pro-consumer musicians like Rage Against the Machine force their labels to allow Napster trading. the WIZARD predicts that artists left trading on Napster will become dominant, and rich. The greedy will lose popularity. If Napster can win the wrestling match.

However, the WIZARD see a much bigger long term problem: the proposed Napster II operating system, scheduled for launch this summer. This new system would do away with the mp3 standard, replacing it with a closed .nap format. This new system would have users pay an additional fee to burn CDs and to transfer their music to portable devices. Napster seems to be developing the very "rent to own" music system that fair use advocates have been fighting all along.