Napster - a music fan's friend or enemy of the free world?   JULY 16, 2000 By JIM BROOKS   Call it a sign of our online, wired times. Never before has one piece of computer software so consumed an industry -- and attracted millions of loyal fans and users while doing so. Napster is a small computer program with a simple purpose: To allow music lovers the opportunity to download and trade music files -- all without any money changing hands. Napster has rocketed in popularity since its debut, and it is the simple premise -- the chance to download free music -- that's earned it its wide range of loyal users. And it's this premise that's also attracted its harshest critics. Napster users violate any number of laws governing intellectual property and copyrights, critics say. Musicians charge that Napster allows users to listen to their music without cost, which takes away from sales of compact discs and audiotapes. Napster's supporters say users actually buy more audio CDs because they get to listen to tracks and evaluate if they like what they hear. The key to Napster is that users aren't logging into a huge archive of digitized music that sits on a single computer. The files that Napster users can download are coming from their fellow users' computers -- a sort of musical swap fest. Using Napster is easy, and installing it only takes a few moments. You can search for music by keyword in titles or by group name or even part of a name or title. It's amazing and how well it works. In light of allegations of copyright infringement and lost sales from the recording artists and industry officials, it's important to note that Napster doesn't store any music files, and has no online catalog of files. Napster is a "peer-to-peer" product -- buzzwords that mean the software simply connects you to other users with music files. If you follow Internet trends, it appears that peer-to-peer Internet applications like Napster are making waves with high-tech venture capital investors. Napster's been receiving millions of dollars in venture capital funds as of late. Napster's defenders say that people have a right to share music with one another as long as there's no money changing hands. The debate has reached Capital Hill, where the Senate's Judiciary Committee heard testimony from both sides of the debate. THE REAL WORLD OF NAPSTER. I've been using Napster for quite a while, and I've become quite a fan. One of the first things I discovered about Napster is that you quickly find out you need a larger hard drive if you do much downloading. Digitized tunes in the popular MP3 format may have near-CD audio quality, but each high-quality tune can also take up several megabytes of space on your hard drive. The rule of thumb I've used is one minute of music requires approximately one megabyte in file size. In short, check your hard drive space before downloading the long version of ``Stairway to Heaven.'' For me, Napster's been my ticket to nostalgia for music from the last four decades. One of my favorite songs years ago was a 1970s hit for Al Green called ``The Snake.'' I had the song on eight-track tape, but unfortunately the tape expired many years ago from heat and being overplayed. In the past 15 years, I've only heard the song a couple of times on the radio. But once I began using Napster, I indeed found another Napster user with Green's ``The Snake'' in MP3 format and available for download. In a few minutes, I had Green's silky smooth voice coursing through my computer speakers. In my case, sampling Green's music also brought me up to speed on his more recent work. And thanks due to Napster -- call it ``stealing'' if you will -- Green will earn whatever royalties he's due from the sale of least one more CD sold the next time I'm in a music store. According to a recent Canadian study, I'm in good company. The ``buy-it-after-you-try-it'' phenomenon is the rule rather than the exception among Napster users. The Senate panel looking at the Napster situation isn't working on legislation specifically to deal with the product. The real test may come if the many lawsuits filed make their way through the court system. To try Napster for yourself, visit the Web site at www.napster.com. SENIORS ONLINE. Americans over the age of 55 are increasingly going online for news and information, according to a recent study by Greenfield Online. Senior Web surfers are more likely to buy products online than your average users, according to the study. Of the 2808 over-55 Internet users polled, 70 percent check the weather online, 57 percent find coupons and special offers and 56 percent read online news. Of the users surveyed, almost one-third spend more than two hours online each day, and 90 percent of them own a printer, while 61 percent own a flatbed scanner. The most popular web destinations? Ninety percent say they've tried online sweepstakes, contests and other sites that award points or provide online contests. IE 5.5. Microsoft released Internet Explorer 5.5 as promised, and as you might expect, the release was met with a few bugs. One bug hunter has uncovered a bug that could allow someone to use an ActiveX-enabled browser to read files on a user's computer. ActiveX is Microsoft's method of letting its Web browser interact with other applications, and has come under fire previously for similar security problems. Microsoft is looking into the report. For the latest information, visit Microsoft's Web site devoted to Internet Explorer, www.microsoft.com/ie/. Comments and questions about this column may be sent to jbrooks@myoldkentuckyhome.com, or visit www.myoldkentuckyhome.com on the World Wide Web. | HOME |