By
Jose Ceja
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Web site created a trend that music industry may have to keep up with, UA professor Jim Mitchell says
Whatever fate lies in Napster's future after last week's federal court ruling, the technology the Web site has introduced may force music companies to change the way they do business.
Jim Mitchell, a UA journalism assistant professor who teaches a class on media law, said that although record companies can use Napster's defeat as "ammunition" in future court cases, they must also deal with the trend it has created.
Napster's popularity - it currently has about 61 million users - has spawned dozens of other sites which essentially promote the same music-sharing concept.
The use of a centralized server to organize its files - which Napster relied on - may have made the service easy prey for the music industry, but many newer sites, such as Gnutella.com, are simply "peer-to-peer" - meaning they work simply by pairing computers.
"I'm sure the record industry will continue to crack down on that, but it is going to be more difficult (with decentralized servers)," Mitchell said.
Some sites, such as freenet.sourceforge.net, function by allowing their users complete anonymity and do not rely on a centralized server.
"To achieve this, (Freenet) provides anonymity to those placing information into Freenet and those accessing information from Freenet. It is also totally decentralized. Nobody is in control of Freenet, not even its creators," a statement on the Web site said.
TJ Vincent, an undeclared sophomore who has shared more than 600 files on Napster, said that although these new sites are attempting to rival Napster, they may never reach the same level of popularity.
"Napster is what everyone knew about," Vincent said. "If one (file sharing program) is too small, nobody will care about it, and if it is too big, it will get shut down."
Last Monday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Napster must stop allowing its millions of users to share copyrighted material and lock out those users who exchange copyrighted songs without permission. Napster may remain in business, but the three-judge panel told a lower court judge to rewrite her injunction that ordered Napster to shut down, pending a trial in a lawsuit filed by the recording industry.
Vincent said he thinks it is almost impossible for record companies to prevent piracy, MP3 file sharing and technological advances such as CD "burners," which copy and create CDs, and CD "rippers," which are programs that allow CDs to be condensed into MP3 form and shared.
"If you have a CD burner, it pays for itself in a month," he said.
Vincent said that the typical price of a CD is too much for the average college student to pay - fueling the popularity of Web sites such as Napster.
"Fifteen dollars is a lot of money," he said. "Napster made everything affordable."
With several sites working to keep music sharing "affordable," Mitchell said music companies may have to re-evaluate the way they do business.
The traditional way of buying music, Mitchell said, will be altered by this new technology - something perhaps not entirely bad for the music industry.
"Certainly there is pressure on them to do so (go digital), but there is also some economic sense," Mitchell said.
Although record companies can slash production costs by selling their music through the Internet, regulation is still the primary issue, Mitchell said.
"They're all trying to go digital anyway, and this just helps them stay ahead of the curve," he said.
