Allow me a moment to vent my feelings. The last two issues of our newsletter discussed the most recent flap over copyright laws in this country, specifically Napster. Whether you agree with the federal court system in this case or not, Napster is going to lose out, period. Recent case law has upheld the notion that "sharing" copyrighted material by copying and keeping the original and giving away the copies for free is "distribution" in the eyes of the courts. Even though the defendant in this case (sorry, the name eludes me at this time) claimed he made no profit and money never changed hands, "distributing" MP3s on the internet violated the conditions of current copyright law. Read that as the CRIMINAL conditions of current copyright law. This was one person running a private MP3 web site, not a business providing access to hundreds of interconnected users. There were those in the internet community who felt this one lone gunman was a guinea pig before the record industry moved in on larger operations like Napster, and time has shown this to be more than just the paranoia of a few hackers.

Last year, if you remember, there was a similar case concerning MP3. The record industry pooled its resources, hired lawyers, and claimed in court that MP3 served no legitimate purpose other than breaking the law. After several early setbacks the MP3 community survived. If someone remembers the time frame please tell me, but I believe about five years ago the record industry had a short-lived attempt to close down businesses that sold used CDs as well. The claim then was only the person who initially purchased the tape or CD had rights to its use and the tapes and CDs couldn’t be "distributed" further. Since I just bought a Tom Petty CD at Sound Exchange I don’t think that went anywhere either.

Of similar but unheralded news we have federal judge Lewis Kaplin coming down hard on something known as DeCSS. Never heard of it? If Hollywood had its way you never would. DeCSS is a utility that unscrambles DVD signals and allows copying. This sounds like a no-brainer, "I’m not allowed to own a utility or machine to copy something I already own?" "What about my VCR or cassette recorder?" Don’t forget, the movie and recording industry have attacked those in the recent past also. They tried to get the court system to interpret copyright law similar to computer software. If you haven’t been listening to the radio recently there has been an enormous increase in scare commercials from a group called the "Business Software Alliance" reminding people of the severe penalties involved in software piracy. Piracy, or copyright infringement, involves the use of a single program on multiple computers, even if they are used for personal use and not "distributed". Imagine what would have happened if this strict enforcement had applied to every CD, tape, or VHS purchase.

These large industries fear something they don’t understand and are trying to hold off their obsolescence as long as possible. I feel that the recording and movie industry have found themselves in the classic "buggy whip" situation where technology is making them obsolete and they are using the only tool they understand, lawsuits, to protect their vested interests. The internet was originally designed as a distributed network to store and share information outside of one central authority. Even though it was envisioned as a military endeavor, the recording industry and the government have no place complaining about the internet being used as it was intended. The law needs to be changed to enhance the growth of technology not to protect aging industries from technological development.

A new industry will arrive when and where we least expect it to take the changes around us and turn them into the sort of business that fills the needs of the consumer while protecting the rights and livelihood of the artists. If a company like Napster can create an environment where the artist is getting direct feedback from the consumer instead of market research figures, we may see more original talent like Elvis Presley and Jimmy Hendrix instead of Milli-Vanilli and the Backstreet Boys. This sort of direct connection between the end user and the artist is the way theater, painting, and music have been done for millennia and our culture has not suffered any the worse for it. u