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hit men: after the napster verdict by Alex Burns (alex@disinfo.com) - December 20, 2000 |
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| The history of the music industry is a history of dissembling, conflict of interest, exploitation, and theft - legal, illegal and quasi-legal. ~ ~ Robert Fripp. "If Napster is supposed to be about giving unknown artists a helping hand, then why is 85 percent of the stuff available on Napster copyrighted material traded without the consent of the artist?" The US District Court hearing had all the ingredients for a Fear & Loathing expose: nasty villains (the major labels and the Recording Industry Association of America), embattled defendents (Napster founder Shawn Fanning and Napster CEO Hank Barry), a pragmatic arbiter (Judge Marilyn Patel), and a superstar advocate (ex-Microsoft antitrust trial lawyer David Boies). Patel's federal court ruling to shutdown Napster's online file-swapping system (July 27th, 2000) signalled the endgame of a months-long drama which has divided the music industry. The RIAA lawsuit has been compared to Amazon.com boycotts and DVD hacker-piracy lawsuits; it made Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich a target for derisive spoofs; and competing sites such as Gnutella, Freenet, CuteMX, iMesh, and Scour now challenge Napster for supremacy. When Napster gained a life-support injunction (July 29th, 2000), open-code programmers and music analysts alike vowed that online bootlegging would survive for as long as the Internet does. Aren't we all missing something here? Three winners emerged from the contentious Napster debate: entertainment lawyers, the entertainment media, and the RIAA-labels industry alliance. This is an orienting generalization to larger questions. The first group makes money, regardless of the final outcome or Shakespeare's excellent advice on how to deal with them. The second group establish the limits of a conflict stage-managed by news cycles and veiled editorial formulas. Roundtable participants quickly conform to deterministic 19th Century theatrical types: the greedy betrayer (Lars Ulrich), the socially-commited artist (Chuck D), the radicals (MP3.com's Michael Robertson and Gnutella's Gene Can), the femme fatale (Courtney Love), and the naive sell-outs (Limp Bizkit). The much publicized zero-sum 'debate' between Chuck D (who advocated liberating technology) and Lars Ulrich (who defended paying artists on principle) emphasized partial truths of a greater - still unglimpsed - whole. They missed an opportunity to integrate their differences and focus their combined efforts on solving underlying problems. The third group ensures that debate sells plenty of product (artist-created but ultimately owned by the industry). By focusing attention upon online piracy, the RIAA and labels misdirected attention from their exploitative 'standard practices' which have defined the music industry's political economy. Labels (both major and independent) have stolen more money from artists than Napster and its clones ever did. File-swapping technology overcomes some barriers to entry by opening distribution pathways, but cannot resolve artist exploitation alone without corresponding change within traditionally conservative corporate, legal, and media values systems. Record companies outweigh young artist's negotiating power on everything from advances to promotional campaigns (both recouped from royalties). Artists ultimately pay for expensive music videos whether MTV shows them or not, but the record company owns the phonographic copyright on their work. The brief exposure which priority artists gain from Napster-style controversies is a poor substitute for independence. By making an anti-Napster stance uncool, the debate also curtailed discussion of initiatives like Robert Fripp's Discipline Global Mobile and Bootleg TV; both companies are anti-Napster but artist-friendly. Cabal conspiracy and C. Wright Mills-style industry analyses are no longer required explanations. Distrust the image and the soundbite: put everything in context. |
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Gnutella.com Sue Napster Get Your Music Mojo Working Napster: Not Just For The Music Napster Gets Stay Of Execution MP3 Traders' 11th-Hour Frenzy Napster's 'No Offence' Defence Napster's File-Trading No More MPAA Skewers Scour Napster's Good? Bad? Er, What . . .? Napster Goes To Washington Napster's 'Safe Harbor' Sinks How To Respond To The Napster Injunction Why The Music Industry Has Nothing To Celebrate Court To Napster: You're Going Down Watermarks In Music? Napster Ruling Won't Stop The Music Napster Urges Users To Multimedia 'Napster' Awaits Fate Napster Recording Industry Association Of America Salon's Napster Coverage FreeNet Gnutella PlayJ Columbia Music Service Priority Records CuteMX iMesh FairTunes Scour Tapster AntiAuthority Boycott RIAA Music On The Internet: Is There An Upside To Downloading? Die RIAA Boycott RIAA Boycott RIAA Dot Org Napster Bad Showbiz Reacts To Napster Ruling Yo!NK File Community Discipline Global Mobile Bootleg TV Secure Digital Music Initiative Disinformation Dossier On Lars Ulrich's Death Wish: Metallica v Their Fans Music Industry Ignores The Noise Rapstation Swapmeet Courtney Love Does The Math Who Will Own Your Next Good Idea? Life, Liberty, . . . And The Pursuit Of Copyright Beyond Napster: Checking In With Audio Alley |
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