> > > > Napster is a service that was created specifically to facitiate the dissemination of copyrighted materials illegally.
> > >
> > > This does not necessarily make it illegal.
> >
> >[snip lockpick example]
> >
> > > A question: what if the primary purpose of AOL Instant Messenger or something became piracy of copyrighted material? If 99% of the users on AIM were doing illegal things, should we hold AOL responsible?
> > >
> > > In other words, is Napster only illegal because you believe the original intent of the creators was to aid in piracy?
> > >

Look. Questions of "original intent", and the debate on rarified shades of meaning regarding 'intent' and 'purpose', often become very important in a court of law. Defendants get into these debates because in a struggling attempt to judge FAIRLY as well as with justice, an arbiter is forced to consider all possible angles for the eventual usage of a product, intended or not.


> > > What if Napster decided to change the intent of its program? What if they started actively promoting only works that were in the public domain? Would they still be held responsible for the actions of their users?
> > >
> > > Stephen

Reality check here. The problem with Napster is that from the start they were acting in bad faith. Up until they were forced to back down recently through continuing litigation, Napster's approach was to take pride in an antagonistic challenge to music industry standards. They claimed validity through a grass-roots revolution where "information wants to be free." Frankly, I regard their disdain as a hijacking of basic Open Source philosophy. Oh yes, *today* Napster's CEO currently claims that they "want people to come to Napster and share legal music, discover new artists and grow the record industry from whatever billions of dollars it is today to some order of magnitude above that." Under the gun, they've promised to install filtering software that ensures copyrighted material doesn't show up on their server indices. But as Doug Reece points out, this viewpoint was never echoed on earlier versions of the company's web site, which once proclaimed, "Napster virtually guarantees you'll find the music you want, when you want it. ...you can forget wading through page after page of unknown artists."

In the real world, we have to consider how the terrible ease of making infinite digital copies will affect the real artists who have to make a living. Do you feel that creativity is public domain? I think that your advocacy of Open Source products such as Linux may have clouded the issue. Products such as Linux -- and other Open Source tools which are packaged with their source code open for all to see -- provide a genuine challenge to the closed standard of corporate domination of the software industry. Open Source encourages the concept of free exchange of creative ideas, the sharing of resources that develop around them, and the distribution of knowledge. This is not what Napster does. What Napster has done is to feed the more selfish energies of users, who feel that gaining things without any liability (or cost) is actually a personal triumph.

It would be one thing if Napster were about the file-sharing of educational materials like, for example, MP3s to aid in the study of sacred medieval choral music; or recordings of Bantu ceremonial harvest songs to use in cultural exchange programs. But for most people, what Napster seems to be 'about' is the swapping of copyrighted material for the purposes of entertainment. No 'knowledge' is being usefully disseminated. One could argue that Napster offers a venue for free exchange of "cultural pop music heritage." This is an excretable lie when the main attraction of the swapping-service is derived from the work of artists who deserve to be paid for their work.

In the near future, Napster intends to have users pay a licensing fee on the service, which will go towards the artists allowing their material to be shared. Given their hand has been forced, this concessionary measure does not make Napster any more worthy of praise.


> I am simply saying that Napster provides little more than a common protocol and an index, and as such can not be rationally held responsible for what people choose to do with this information.
> > > What actions does Napster take to promote piracy? They index files on the computer of a user. Google does roughly the same thing, would you accuse them of facilitating piracy?
> >
> >
> > Napster exists only to facilitate copyrighted materials illegally. That's not its 'most obvious' use, that is its use. It doesn't matter what the users do with the program. It's not like a gun, which could be used to kill people but can also be used for hunting. It's not a set of lockpicks, which could be used to break into other people's houses but could also be used by locksmiths or to unlock your own property. It exists solely to trade music files without paying royalties to the copyright holder.
> >

Neither lockpicks nor guns are appropriate analogies to the situation here. Both of these 'tools' require some degree of training or skill to use *effectively*. Napster deliberately makes it all too easy for anyone with a computer and an Internet connection to steal reams of music in minutes.

...I could also argue that a more serious 'crime' than theft is that a handgun, in itself, has an overall design to deliberately make it all too easy to kill people... and therefore should be banned in a civilized society. But this is besides the point.


> Uhhh... so then there is nothing on Napster (or rather on its user's computers) that's in the public domain? Or that has been given the blessing of copyright holders? I know people who use Napster to get music of indy bands that think Napster is okay. One of my friends has actually told me that some of his most heavily downloaded stuff is this type of music.
>
> Copyrighted music is the most predominant thing being shared on Napster, no doubt about it. But IT IS NOT THE ONLY USE FOR NAPSTER. There are plenty of legitimate uses.
>
> Your entire argument seems to hinge on your belief that the only function of Napster is to illegaly trade music. Please provide some evidence to support this; I believe it to be in blatant contrast to the facts.
>

Fine; in addition to the previous arguments, I can provide the content you ask.

Napster is based on peer-to-peer (P2P) communications software. Napster appropriated the original underground file-sharing abilities of IRC and Hotline -- from the warez/cracks scene -- and then wrapped everything up in a friendly, *MP3-centric* interface. If there are truly "plenty of legitimate uses" for Napster, Stephen, then why the focus on music MP3s -- when they were acutely aware that the vast majority of these would be ripped from copyrighted material?

More tellingly: if Napster were upfront in offering access to free music in the public domain, they would have willingly developed filtering methodology -- from the start -- to help prevent copyrighted music from getting indexed. Other MP3 services have been quick to respond to the concerns of copyright holders. To make a comparison, consider how Scour.net was the immediate precursor to Napster as a P2P-based MP3 search engine. Within a year Scour had to severely limit any MP3 access that indexed the P2P drive-sharing network resources of Windows 95/NT on individual computers. Today, Scour indexes public-domain Audio, Video, and Images (i.e. all sorts of PD audio media as well as short films, movie trailers, and shockwave animations.)

You should also look at what Hotline has done, the actual pioneer of P2P communications. From its beginnings as a Chat and file-sharing utility, Hotline's focus is now in the licensing of P2P applications and in creating vertical community-building software. In addition to "content-sharing" (i.e. the usual uploading and downloading of personal files), they provide Chat, messaging, news and forums, streaming multimedia, auction sites and financial netmarkets. Hotline shows that it is possible to follow /legitimate/ business strategies to bring users together, and enrich their interactions by allowing people to build their own P2P communities online. This is a far cry from the reason for Napster's existence, which up until now, as Faux Pas said, has been /solely/ to trade (and talk about trading) MP3 music files without paying royalties to the copyright holders of the said music.

Wolfspirit