So here we have it: A federal judge entered an injunction to shut down the Napster music-sharing server and shut out its more than 20 million users. On July 26, 2000 Judge Marilyn Patel shocked just about everyone, including the lawyers for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), by abruptly entering a verbal order for Napster to shut down its server by midnight on Friday, July 28^th (Pacific Standard Time). Then, within 48 hours of that ruling, the next judicial level up, the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals, heard an entreaty from the Napster lawyers…and countermanded the lower court’s injunction. So Napster remains online and serving its millions of customers...for the time being, at least.

"Pirates" is how the RIAA characterizes both Napster and the music-copying and music-trading fans of the software. While the RIAA argued that the entire Napster operation was a front for wholesale copyright infringement and piracy, the Napster lawyers argued that people have an inherent right to copy and share music downloaded on the Internet as long as no money is changing hands. Round I for the RIAA. Round one-and-a-half for Napster. Where to now? Good question!

The Napster phenomenon has become a cause celebre for both sides of the struggle. Probably because the issues presented involve digitized information that can be utilized for writings as well as pictures, recordings, software and any other kind of information. The battle has been joined on the frontlines of most media outlets, including newspapers, magazines, online forums, online magazines, television reports, etc. And now the stars of the music industry have begun to weigh in, complementing the split ranks (about 85% to 15%) of the music industry "suits". So let’s take a look at who’s who among those manning each side of the Napster/Anti-Napster barricades:

1. On the Anti- side is a growing list of musicians who feel their work is being "ripped off" by consumers utilizing the Napster software and web site…consumers who they believe would otherwise be buying their pricey music CD’s. A short review of current articles on the question shows that these include Aimee Mann, Kristin Hersh (a founding member of The Throwing Muses), Scott Sapp (lead singer of Creed), Chris Robinson (lead singer of the Black Crowes), Sean "Puffy" Combs (aka "Puff Daddy"), Jonatha Brook, Morgan Rose of the hard rock band Sevendust, Mandy Barnett, former Blondie star Debbie Harry, and last but not least, recording star Bif Naked.
   
2. But wait! Coming up fast on the outside is a list of music writers and performers who, if they’re not as numerous as the Anti’s, make up for it with their star-power. Included on this side is a list of people who argue that the "music industry" as it is constituted today is based upon the wholesale exploitation and abuse of artists, and that the destruction of this distribution and marketing semi-monopoly can do nothing other than benefit both artists and their fans. Examples? Courtney Love, lead singer of the band "Hole," who has indicted the music industry as little more than an organized system of stealing from artists (her recent inflammatory speech before a Chicago convention can be found at http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/); rapper Chuck D (who says "I believe in the technology…it’s a fantastic way to build a minor league system of artists"); Grateful Dead songwriter and philosopher John Perry Barlow (who maintains that the music industry is inherently corrupt, greedy, abusive and grasping); the band Limp Bizkit; Marianne Faithfull; and non-star musician Christian Viveros, who simply says "The recording industry is a Mafia."
   
3. In addition, there are renegade music industry professionals who are bolting from the anti-Napster line and saying that the music-sharing revolution can birth an entirely new (and profitable) way of doing business. Included are Alan Kovac, president of a management company that represents the bands Motley Crue, the Bee Gees, and others. Ditto for Jim Guerinot, a manager for the bands Offspring and No Doubt, who thinks that the music industry and Napster can work together to birth a new way of serving both artists and fans.

What’s going to happen? Well, first of all Napster is probably going to lose the lawsuit that the RIAA has brought against it (although the case could well end up going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court). Most copyright lawyers and other professionals seem to agree that Napster and the services it offers are clear examples of copyright violation as the law exists today.

Secondly, it looks like "the genie is out of the bottle" when it comes to digital copying and trading of music (not to mention pictures, movies, software, books, and all other forms of information transfer). Even as the Judge Patel was ordering Napster to shut down, alternate methods of doing the same thing were being revved up on the Internet in different parts of the world. All of these alternatives do essentially the same thing as Napster, allowing the wholesale free copying and sharing of music files. They include Gnutella (a decentralized software system for sharing music files); AudioGnome (which relies on about 70 servers in half a dozen countries running a free program called OpenNap); Freenet (which makes every participating computer in essence a file-sharing server and is believed to be "invulnerable to any attack" by the authorities because of its decentralized nature and the use of encryption); Napigator and the "Open Napster" movement (which consists of more than 100 Napster servers running Napster-clone software located in a number of countries); and even MP3Board, Inc., which is being sued by the RIAA for being a company which points to locations on the Internet where bootleg music recordings may be found.

Stay tuned. The recording industry is fighting for its right to force music buyers to buy CD’s for $17 or $18 which cost about 35 cents to manufacture (and which have multiple songs on them that no one wants to hear instead of just the song hits which people do want to buy). Essentially, the music/recording industry is fighting any effort to use the Internet to cut them out of the distribution function which up until now they have dominated. In the long run, however, look for the death of the "music industry" and the birth of a new industry which could be called "the artists and fans industry."  u