dacnapster

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David Croach

Professor DiMarco

College Writing II

21 September 2005

                                         The Napster Effect

       Considering my father was a music teacher and my mother was a choir director, I grew

up listening to music as if it were a second language. Waking up to the sound of Louis

Armstrong wailing from across the hall while my sister belted Alanis Morissette’s melancholy

singles was a typical morning in my household. Birthday shopping for my younger brother was a

breeze, bearing in mind I simply needed to rely on Best Buy carrying Linkin Park’s latest CD. Of

course, the ultimate gift was what I received the Christmas of 2002, when my parents had

purchased me my very first MP3 player. Little did I know that I would lend a helping hand in

crumbling the music industry that had flourished for decades before me.

       The simple thought of gaining something by sacrificing nothing has appealed to the

human race throughout history. This holds as true as ever even today, and through the powers of

the internet, millions of dollars of copyrighted media is but a click away. File-sharing is the act

of copying one piece of data from someone else’s computer or server onto your own computer.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with this, however, it becomes a problem when users take advantage

of file-sharing and start to break the law.

       Infamously renowned Napster could be considered the “father of file-sharing,” and in

using this application, theoretically anyone who could access the World Wide Web could also

gain access to hundreds of thousands of songs by seemingly endless artists. Though, who am I

kidding, we all know you’re all too aware of Napster and his evil twin brothers. As Edna
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Gundersen so aptly stated in her essay against Napster, “…growing swarms of online pirates

continue plundering music's treasure chests….”

       Illegal file-sharing, to be quite blatant, is no more honorable than walking into a Wal

Mart and shoving twelve Metallica CDs into your winter jacket, only to turn around and sell

them on eBay for half their retail price. It’s stealing. So what stops people who sit at home and

download hours of media from using the five-finger discount in actual stores? There’s much

more of a risk when taking physical merchandise, plus, no one seems to get caught online.

People maintain the frame of mind that if everybody’s doing it, it can’t be that that bad.

       Looking at any angle, stealing is morally wrong, no matter how you commit the act.

From a broad point of view, the current situation can be compared to Bowen H. McCoy’s The

Parable of the Sadhu in a way. On one side, you have the sadhu, who is portrayed by a lost and

struggling music industry, trying to find its way back on the track of success. Though, you’re just

a mere passerby. Morally, it’s right to help the old sadhu, lone on his journey. However,

wouldn’t it be easier to instead ignore the problem? Actually, it seems like the sadhu has some

nice jewelry on. Why not jump him instead and steal what rightfully was his? Maybe this

example is taken a bit to the extreme, however if you were a struggling artist trying to get your

hit out in the world only to have it downloaded twelve million times a day, don’t you think you

would feel a bit crippled?

       Large corporations, such as Creative Labs, Apple, and Sony have not been helping the

music industry any by releasing new and updated MP3 players on a regular basis. In this day and

age, even cellular phones and portable video game systems have the ability to play downloaded

music files. The Apple iPod is easily the most popular MP3 player among teenagers and college

students, alike. This 40,000 song jukebox is made simple, so all the user has to do is obtain the
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music and drop it into a folder on the device. Ironically enough, the iPod is one of the pivotal

players in the music industry’s downfall. Apple, however, is apparently fighting the war against

file-sharing by releasing a program called iTunes, where the user can pay 99 cents per song and

legally obtain it through downloading. Unfortunately for Apple, it’s just as easy to use other, free

applications.

       And Napster was only the beginning. Very similar applications such as KaZaA,

Bearshare, Limewire, and many others are popping up all over the place in an effort to make file-

sharing even easier than it already is. While many deem these programs “legal” in a sense, there

have been multiple lawsuits filed against their creators. As shown in Dawn C. Chmielewski’s

article, Court Rules Against KaZaA, an Australian court ruled in favor of the music industry,

essentially shutting down the Sharman networks, which is responsible for running KaZaA. In a

similar article, a newspaper states that Napster was ordered to shut its virtual doors, though the

millions of users accustomed to this program quickly adapted to the next file-sharing monster.

       The question is, how are we supposed to stop such a vigorous, yet captivating beast?

Much like the obligatory initial underage college drink, a vast majority of the young population

has tried file-sharing in some form or another. Be it directly downloading from a server or

simply receiving a burned CD from a friend, if you didn’t pay for it, it’s not yours. But can we

possibly put a cap on this act? According to an article from the New York Times, “[George W.

Bush] … has an eclectic mix of songs downloaded into his iPod from Mark McKinnon, a biking

buddy and his chief media strategist during the 2004 campaign.” If the President of the United

States has obtained illegal music, should I be responsible for him?

       Much like in William Stafford’s poem, Traveling through the Dark, you have reached an

impasse on the road. You have the option of simply driving past the deer and letting someone
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else deal with it, however, one might say the better decision would be to take the deer off the

road, in an effort to do the right thing. You could simply ignore the problem, and hell, possibly

add to it. The other option would be to take a stand and pay for the music you want. Because of

this sudden attack on the music industry, CD prices have severely dropped in a desperate attempt

to bring back some of the more honest audience. You are responsible for whether or not new

artists will be discovered and given what they deserve.

       Seeing as how the music industry is crumbling before our very eyes, and large

corporations don’t seem to mind, it appears to be your job, playing the role of the consumer, to

fix what you have violated, and encourage others around you to do the same. Bear in mind that

programs like KaZaA and Limewire may be legal to download, but using these applications is

still breaking the law. I believe Weird Al spoke for the music industry when he sang the lyrics

“We’re in debt from the internet. [We’ll] sure our fans off to Napster, Napster land.” Oh, you’ve

never heard that song? That’s ok; just download it when you get home.