MISCmedia for 11/17/00
Apres Napster, Le Deluge

IT'S BEEN A SHORT WHILE since the announcement that Napster, the profitless dot-com that's become the symbol of file sharing, DIY music trading, and anti-corporate crusading (and the target of a massive record-industry suit) "sold out," if you're to believe the email and chatroom remarks of many disgruntled users.

Since the initial announcement that Napster would accept an investment from the German media conglomerate Bertlesmann (owner of one of the global Big Five record-label groups that's sued Napster), and would use that money to establish an "enhanced" music-downloading service with yet-unspecified features and a yet-unspecified user fee, the conventional wisdom has been that the party's over.

Napster's supposedly caved into industry pressure (and the lousy dot-com investment climate). It's going to become just another soulless adjunct to the corporate media oiligopoly.

The Napster we've come to grow and (except for record-biz sharks) love, in which their computers served as e-matchmakers between users who had song files and users who wanted them, would soon disappear, according to this scenario. It's sure to be replaced any month now by a pay-to-play setup with all the features corporations like and users dislike (copy-protected files, limited listening periods, limited compatibility across different computer platforms, track and artist selections subject to the priorities of corporate machinations, tons-O-cash going to the companies but not to the artists).

But the Napster folks now insist that ain't necessarily so.

In an FAQ list about the deal, management claims the current Napster system will remain as long as the courts allow (and they'll continue to defend the service in those courts). And the current Napster system will continue to be free.

The for-money Napster Plus, or whatever they end up calling it, will provide "an enhanced service that you'll find even more valuable and that will allow us to generate revenues to be able to make payments to artists and songwriters for music files that our users share with each other." Details are to be announced later, but might not resolve some of the current Napster setup's built-in inconveniences (tracks that are sometimes misidentified, improperly converted, or choppily edited; song selection limited by what other users happen to have online at the moment).

In any event, no matter what happens to Napster, free file sharing's here to stay. Napster happens to have the easiest-to-use file sharing procedure implemented to date. Others, such as Gnutella, do away with Napster's centralized matchmaking system. The substitute search mechanism, at least as currently implemented, can be slow and inconclusive. But they can, and undoubtedly will, be improved upon. As they get easier to use, the major labels might eventually wish they still had an identifiable and sueable entity like Napster to deal with.

Which may be what's really behind the Napster/Bertelsmann deal. Napster offers a common user interface and experience, a brandable identity, to song-sharing.

The labels (or at least Bertelsmann) can deal with that, in ways they'll never be able to deal with the likes of Gnutella and its future incarnations.

MONDAY: The bon Target.

IN OTHER NEWS:The one neighborhood of (or just adjacent to) Seattle that hadn't been taken over by the gentrifiers has, alas, just been discovered--in an article ostensibly bemoaning its down-and-out status but really inviting real-estate speculators to come-'n-get-it.

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