Last night, a federal judge ordered the shutdown of the Nabster file
sharing system discussed in the article.  Incidentally, this was on page
one of Sunday's Sun-Times.

kelly




Chicago Sun Times

MP3 craze heats up

   July 23, 2000

   BY KEVIN M. WILLIAMS STAFF REPORTER

   MP3 is more popular than sex--at least on the Internet.

   This is the New Age equivalent of the cassette tape as millions of
   computer users choose free music over free love.

   The craze is being fueled by pure buzz. MP3 is in the news in a huge
   way as advances in technology make it easy to get music over the
   Internet, and the possibility of getting tunes for free is sparking
   heated debate about whether and how to control the downloads.

   A recent survey by Nua Ltd., a Dublin-based Internet consulting firm,
   found that "sex" has been supplanted by "MP3" as the most used search
   term on the Internet. According to Nua, there were more than a billion
   MP3 downloads in 1999.

   Not bad for a technology that started coming into its own only three
   years ago.

   "People are so excited about it because it's free music," said Bruce
   Fries, author of the MP3 and Internet Audio Handbook. "It's making
   music more convenient and more portable."

   But even as some 50 percent of U.S. households have computers, many
   people are still left wondering, what in the heck is MP3, and why is
   it so popular?

   Simply put, MP3 (MPEG Layer 3) is a computer file that is compressed
   so it can be sent from an Internet site to a computer without
   requiring hours to transfer the music. The files can be played using
   computer speakers, or burned onto a CD and used in a portable player.
   That means you can have your own playlist rather than something a CD
   maker gives you. And you can get about 10 MP3 tunes in the space
   needed for one conventional CD tune.

   "I don't want to lug all my CDs," said Andrew Grobengieser of New
   York, a 30-year-old assistant conductor for the "Miss Saigon" musical
   here. "It's fine for most rock 'n' roll."

   It's also easy to use. If you can send an e-mail or double-click a
   mouse, you can work with MP3.

   Probably best of all for music lovers who don't want to blow all their
   cash on CDs, some of the most popular MP3 sites--most notably
   Napster--provide tunes for free.

   So it's bigger than sex on the Net. But with so much going for it, why
   isn't it even bigger?

   For one thing, MP3 portables are expensive. Average retail hovers
   around $200 for a unit about the size of a beeper in many cases, with
   about an hour of music storage capacity. Top-of-the line players can
   cost much more: For example, the Sony NW-MS7 digital music player is
   priced at $339.95.

   And even though download times have steadily improved, getting a file
   can still be time-consuming.

   "I tried it about a month ago, but had trouble downloading it on my
   Mac," said Juan Ramirez, a 22-year-old Chicago waiter and film
   student. "I didn't want to go through all the hassle."

   For now, he said, he'll continue to use his CD player.

   Sound quality doesn't always measure up for others. Anthony Ramos, 16,
   of Chicago said he borrowed a friend's MP3 player recently to listen
   to some rap music and it sounded OK--but not good enough to persuade
   him to spend the money for an MP3 player.

   But the best could be yet to come for MP3, as technology catches up
   with the potential of better sound quality and better download speeds.

   Of the homes with computers, precious few have the high-speed access
   provided by cable modems or DSL (digital subscriber line) service.

   Through a 28.8K modem, downloading a five-minute song takes around an
   hour, assuming all goes well. That time diminishes to 20 minutes with
   a 56K connection. A cable modem takes a few minutes.

   This is why much of the MP3 activity comes from college students--they
   have free access to super-fast T1 lines that make digital downloads a
   snap. Once the home user has readily available access to this level of
   speed, look for MP3s to take another quantum leap in popularity.

   Judging by the number of hardware manufacturers lining up to feed at
   the trough of consumer interest, MP3 has a secure place in pop
   culture.

   Diamond Rio brought its portable MP3 player, the Rio 300, to market in
   1999, opening the barn door. There are now some 70 different variants
   of MP3 portable, all offering ease of use and a degree of
   shock-resistance unheard of with portable CD players. Big names Sony
   and Philips have weighed in with portables rated among the best in the
   business.

   The latest craze is the CD/MP3 portable, a category that includes the
   popular $99 Genica unit as well as Philips' eXpanium ($199). It plays
   CDs, CD-Recordables, CD-Rewritables and MP3s for eight to 14 hours
   depending on the format and use. All-inclusive players such as this
   one are a glimpse of the future.

   "I think that MP3 will become more popular as people's home equipment
   gets more sophisticated," said J.J. Tindall, a Chicago musician who's
   been getting his music out via Internet MP3 for about a year. "Once
   everybody gets used to instantaneous downloads and are able to burn
   CDs. Just think what will happen once people get used to the idea that
   they can make their own CDs."

   The music file-sharing site Napster has almost single-handedly raised
   the profile of MP3--and made waves in the process as the music
   industry wrestles with new copyright questions.

   Napster, a precocious two-year-old, enables users to swap MP3 files
   quite easily, by simply searching for a song, then clicking to
   download it. Napster has clogged Internet transmission lines at
   colleges and universities, and it's made history as the
   fastest-growing Internet service.

   But as an estimated 20 million Napster users swap files at the site,
   the company itself swaps legal briefs with the Recording Industry
   Association of America and other musicians, who are queuing up to sue
   Napster for copyright infringement.

   Heavy metal band Metallica followed the industry group with a lawsuit
   of its own, as did hip-hop performer Dr. Dre, who said, "I don't like
   people stealing my music."

   What's important to understand is that Napster, and similar
   file-sharing sites such as Gnutella and Scour, also contain much
   perfectly legal content. Even more important, contrary to what might
   be mistakenly inferred from the reams of litigation coverage, MP3
   itself is legal.

   "It's probably the next leap in technology for music," said Phil
   Hodge, a Maryland country singer who was a chart-topper at MP3.com.
   "It's one of those things that in five years, who knows where it will
   be?"

   So just like the searches for sex sites on the Net, MP3 appears to be
   here to stay.

   "It's finally given people something to do on the Internet that's not
   perverted," said Hodge.

   Contributing: Ernest Tucker


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