from the new York Times
December 16, 1998
Fans of MP3 Forced the Issue
By LISA NAPOLI
To understand why the music industry is so concerned about the
file format called MP3, it helps to talk to someone like Ben May,
21, a computer science major at Columbia University.
It is young, technologically savvy consumers like him who have
forced the industry to rethink the way it delivers music.
May downloads songs from the Internet in the form of MP3 files,
most of them created by music collectors who trade songs online.
May has been using computers since he was nine years old. What a
reel-to-reel player was to his grandfather, who avidly recorded and
listened to songs by Frank Sinatra, the computer is to May.
"There's this weird sort of culture, sort of parallel to the hacker
culture," he said in an interview. "People think it's really cool
that they have lots of stuff they didn't pay for, and you find
stuff you like and don't necessarily have to pay for it."
At last count, May had about 1,700 MP3 files, most of which he has
transferred to compact disc using a low-cost CD "burner" he bought
when the music he was downloading started to fill up too much of
his hard drive.
"I'm sort of compulsive," he explained. "I have a short attention
span. Music has a very heavy rotation for me. We're the sound-bite
generation."
The fact that no money is changing hands for this music is what
troubles the Recording Industry Association of America, a trade
group that works to protect artist rights and royalties. Some of
what is downloaded is free and legal, like songs from unsigned
bands eager to get their music in the hands of as many people as
possible. But a lot of what is on the Internet is there in
violation of copyright law, meaning the record companies and the
artists are not getting their profits.
Thanks to the high-speed Internet connections available to many
dorm-dwelling students these days, the process of grabbing and
playing these files is fairly fast and simple, once the necessary
software is downloaded and once a user tracks down the files he
wants.
Finding interesting music is a form of recreation on which May
spends a considerable amount of time. (The trading of MP3 files
died down over the summer months, he said, when most people were
home from school and therefore relegated to slow Internet
connections.)
"What I do is sit and stare at the lists on FTP servers and
newsgroups, looking for stuff I've heard that interests me," he
said. "I can download an entire album from someone else in the dorm
in two minutes. From someone else, 10 minutes."
Many MP3 traders "bury" their music lists by posting them on
hard-to-find FTP servers or on Usenet groups. That way, they are
less likely to get caught by record company investigators, who
search the Internet for illegally posted music.
People have long relied on friends and word of mouth to teach them
about new music and musicians. But MP3s and the Internet take that
notion to new heights.
Jonathan J. Burtenshaw, a 21-year old technology specialist who
works at a Web design company near Toronto, converted all the CDs
he owns, about 300, to MP3 file format and posted the list online,
looking to trade.
_________________________________________________________________
"I simply pop in an MP3 CD anytime I want to listen to music. My
five-disc CD player has been gathering dust ever since."
_________________________________________________________________
A man in Amsterdam wrote and wanted about 50 of Burtenshaw's
albums. Burtenshaw saw about 50 on the other man's list that he
wanted. He copied the music he owned to several discs, and mailed
them overseas, receiving a reciprocal package in the mail.
"Each CD holds roughly 10 full albums, about 10 hours of music," he
said in an e-mail interview. "As my computer is hooked up to my
stereo, I simply pop in an MP3 CD anytime I want to listen to
music. My five-disc CD player has been gathering dust ever since."
May and Burtenshaw both said they have bought more music, not less,
since they started trading MP3 files.
The opportunity for people to hear a wider variety of music is just
one argument put forth in a manifesto called "Free Music" written
by Ram Samudrala, a 26-year-old post-doctoral fellow at Stanford
University.
A musician himself, Samudrala believes MP3 is an important step in
a radical transformation of the music business, and he opposes the
attempts by the RIAA to fight MP3.
"The music industry restricts copying and other uses of music in
order to maximize profit, but this comes at a great cost, that of
abridging the spread of creativity," he writes on his Web page.
"Music is about creative and passionate ideas. Not product."
The MP3 traders said they don't mind paying for music. They said
they just don't want to pay as much as the industry charges.
May believes he should be able to pay a fee to download music off
the Internet -- rather than going to a store and buying it, and
paying for packaging and the like.
"You're not paying for the disc; you're paying for the right to use
the software," he said.
Burtenshaw said that does not mean he feels people should abuse the
right. "I am firmly against large-scale piracy," he said. "This
hurts everyone, including the artist. Yet, the RIAA goes after MP3,
which has the potential to rejuvenate the recording industry by
allowing people to sample music that they wouldn't have access to
otherwise."
For a certain generation of people who see the Internet as one part
record store, one part trading ground, one part music player,
there's no turning back.
"Everyone who's into computers does the MP3 thing," May said,
"whether or not they admit it."
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
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