The Aftermath of Napster: Copyrights
in the New Millenium
By Richard Leader
Napster is not yet dead--but it might as well be, as only a fraction
of the former number its users still log on to the system with any
frequency. Though the legal battle with the Recording Industry Association
of America (RIAA) is still being waged, a preliminary injunction has
forced both Napster and the record labels to collaborate in blocking
copyrighted songs from being traded on the internet service. The labels
are required to submit lists of artists and song titles, as well as
possible computer file names (including common misspellings). Whenever
a Napster user logs on to the system each MP3 file which he or she
intends to share is checked against the database of blocked songs.
Files found to be in violation will simply not show up when other
users search for them and will be unavailable for trading.
This is easier said than done, however, as record labels are forced
to scramble to furnish this information while wading through a sea
of red-tape. The Sony Music Group failed to include possible file
names for every single one of the 46,000 songs they intended to have
blocked, let alone misspelled ones. While Napster might be amused
by the industry's incompetence, they are dismayed by many overzealous
labels which are petitioning to have files blocked for songs that
they do not even own the rights to (i.e. blocking a file named "One"
would not only effect the song by Metallica, but would also block
U2's song of the same title and dozens of others that share that name),
as well as songs by artists who have specified that they want their
music to be available for download on the internet, or even live recordings
by fans that were taped with the artist's permission.
Even though Napster has not given up the fight in the courtroom, it
is remarkably amicable to the terms of the injunction and is not aiding
those who would seek to make the task of blocking songs even more
daunting for the record industry. Aimster (www.aimster.com), a competitor
in the file-sharing business, released a program that would instantly
convert song titles into--and back from--a form of Pig Latin to get
around the new blocking mechanism. While record labels could attempt
to have the Pig Latin titled songs blocked in the same way as any
other misspelling, Aimster argued that to do so would be violating
the same law that the record industry fought for to protect their
copyrights. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which went
into effect on October 28, 2000, makes it illegal to circumvent a
technological protection system, such as encryption, no matter how
simple it might be. By trying to block Pig Latin variations, Aimster
believed that Napster would be violating the DMCA and invading the
privacy of its users, though this argument is to a large degree spurious
as Pig Latin could easily be deemed to be public property held in
common by the courts and not a valid encryption mechanism. Under pressure
from Napster itself, Aimster has retracted its Pig Latin encoder software,
but is still providing its alternative file-sharing software, which
works in cooperation with traditional instant messaging software by
America Online or Yahoo.
Despite its success in capturing mainstream users across the globe,
Napster stands as an enormous economic failure, as both they and the
music industry failed to truly capitalize on the changes that fast
internet connections (known as broadband) are bringing to the world.
As the technology that drives communication and storage devices is
at long last keeping pace with that of media, content can be had by
anyone, at any time, and on demand--the only question is, who is going
to supply it? Business has always had a peculiar sense of morality
and nowhere can that be seen more clearly than in the media. While
at one time, favoring the libertarian view of a laissez-faire free
market economy, devoid of government regulations on price fixing and
monopolies--there is a sudden about-face the second copyrights come
into the equation, and they are suddenly cozying up to the Supreme
Court. While many pirates, people who make unauthorized copies of
copyrighted material, have a similarly myopic morality, stating that
theirs is an act of protest and not of theft, it is the duty of consumers
to make sure that their government represents them and not the whims
of big business. A duty it seems we have been remiss in, to take a
look at the results of the last presidential election.
While pirated content can still be had with the possible dissolution
of Napster, it would be a serious blow to the mainstream acceptance
of computer file-sharing because of its near universal popularity
and ease of use. Instead, decentralized methods of file-sharing will
become the norm, as the government's ability to interfere with them
is negligible as only the tools with which this sharing is conducted
have any real world presence. However, all of this comes at the cost
of ease of use. The money will be made in the creation of "portals,"
sites such as www.zeropaid.com designed to mitigate the complexity
of decentralized file-sharing as well as the software itself. Microsoft,
with its latest version of Windows Media Player, a program that can
play back virtually any type of digital media from DVD movies to MP3s,
has already taken steps in making sure they are at the forefront of
this. In Windows Media Player 7.0 there are now controls for Digital
Rights Management, software which is designed for the protection of
copyrighted material. This has startlingly specific uses and could
allow the publishers of a music or video file to only allow it to
be used a certain number of times before expiring, only within a certain
period of time, or can prevent unauthorized duplications from being
made. While the new version of Windows Media Player is an optional
download now, the next version of the Windows operating system, Windows
XP, will include Digital Rights Management as a core feature. This
will allow them to further position their own digital music format
(the method by which music is digitally compressed), the WMA, a competitor
to the MP3 format, as the number one choice of publishers--though
not of music fans.
The ideology of decentralization is progressing well beyond the frontiers
of software and into real life. The concept of internationality is
by nature dependant upon the concept of nations, which provides ample
loopholes for those who wish to capitalize on the limited jurisdictions
of governments. While businesses running online computer gambling
services are the most well known example of those who move overseas
in order to do business with a domestic audience, flaunting their
ability to dodge the regulations of the US government (or in some
cases by preventing regulations, as they donated $3.9 million in soft
money to both political parties in the last presidential election),
this is only the beginning. While big business has always targeted
smaller nations for use and exploitation, some, such as the Principality
of Sealand, are attempting to take the bull market by the horns.
Sealand, a British naval platform in the North Sea was constructed
during World War II to mount anti-aircraft weapons. After the war,
the abandoned structure was claimed by a British veteran, Paddy Roy
Bates, who declared it an independent country (where he still lives
to this day) in international waters--renaming himself Prince Roy
in the process. While the history of Sealand is varied an interesting,
containing both kidnapping and mercenary military operations, it is
HavenCo (www.havenco.com)
that will put it on the map. Offering massive computers, satellite
links, and impunity from the laws of every other nation, HavenCo controls
the first "data haven" where information can exist and be
transmitted without observation, control, or outside influence--ideals
which some believe to be the foundation of the internet. While HavenCo
has restricted child-pornographers, email spammers, and hackers from
using its services, as well as maintaining space for community service
on the global scale, such as Tibet Online (home of the refugee Tibetan
government), the ability for big business to escape international
laws are staggering, as they alone can afford the service. Anarchy
is for those with power and those with nothing to lose--everyone else
misses out and has to play by the rules. What those new rules are,
remain to be seen, but this article will give you a roadmap for the
coming attractions.
Audio
Five years ago, the average home computer was barely able to play
an MP3 file, let alone create them, a process which is known as "encoding."
Those who were interested in downloading music were forced to accept
the tastes of the few who had access to powerful computer workstations
in laboratories and universities--geeks--and often the only song readily
available on the internet was Aqua's "Barbie Girl." For
the most part this perception is unchanged; MP3s are still seen as
a novelty item for accessing chart-toppers, one-hit-wonders, and nostalgia
pieces. Sales of CD singles were down 36% last year, which the record
industry is citing as proof that Napster is costing them money, even
though the sales of such singles represent less than 1% of their total
revenues--which have increased by 3%, a not so meager 400 million
dollars. This decrease of 36% in 1% of their revenues was initially
reported by the Associated Press as a 39% loss in total revenues from
CDs, a landmark error that the RIAA obviously enjoyed, even if the
mistake was later rectified. The 39% number reported represents the
decline in units of CD singles sold, which only translated into a
revenue decrease of 36% as they had raised the price per unit sold.
The RIAA would love nothing more than to blame their constant price
inflation on Napster.
While both record labels and musicians are unsure of what lies ahead,
the manufacturers of audio and computer equipment are already at work
at paving the way for the music of tomorrow. Traditionally, the goals
of the record industry and audio equipment manufacturers have been
the same, favoring new technology that uses media which is not only
more difficult to copy but also renders entire music collections obsolete--forcing
consumers to repurchase the same music in a higher format. The best
example of this ideology is DVD-Audio: music stored on a disc similar
to those used for DVD-Video and requiring a special DVD-Audio player.
Due to the increased storage space over regular CDs, DVD-Audio allows
for extreme levels of quality, length, as well as complicated copy-protection
mechanisms--similar to the ones found on DVD-Video. Only those with
the most expensive sound systems and speakers could realize noticeable
improvements in sound from this technology, which explains why most
of you have not yet even heard of it--even though it has been available
for years.
However, audio equipment manufacturers have diverged from this course
of action, realizing that there is much more money to be made by targeting
the low end consumer market and volume sales. As much of the focus
on MP3 technology has been on legal issues, many of its more exciting
possibilities have been ignored by the media. Though portable MP3
players have been available for some time, they are still expensive
to both purchase and to use, as you need to store the songs on memory
cards such as Compact Flash, Smart Media, or the better advertised
Sony's Memory Stick. The 64 megabytes of memory required for an entire
album at CD quality costs nearly $90 alone. The problem is not with
MP3s but the way in which they are stored. By combining MP3s with
CD-ROM technology, the music world has been changed forever, though
few are yet aware of it.
CD writers for computers have become very affordable, with midrange
models (8X speed) that can write or "burn" a CD in about
10 minutes being available for well under $100, while high-end models
(16X) can write them in as little as 5 minutes (CD-ROM speed is measured
in factors of X, multiples of 150 kilobytes per second, or alternatively,
0.15 megabytes per second. An 8X drive would then write at 1200 kilobytes
per second). While nearly all of them include software that will easily
allow you to convert MP3s downloaded from the internet into standard
CDs that can be used in any standard audio CD player, this is actually
one of the more conservative uses.
The software included with most CD writers is also able to extract,
or "rip" audio from your music CDs and encode it into MP3
format at the quality you select. This process takes anywhere from
one minute per song on a midrange computer to under twenty seconds
on a high end model. These files can be stored on a computer to be
shared on the internet with software like Napster, or to create standard
audio CDs with favorite song mixes. Collections of MP3 files can be
written directly into data CDs, which are unofficially called "MP3-ROMs."
Due to the compression of the MP3 format, a single CD-ROM can hold
well over 120 songs. While being able to store an entire music collection
on a few discs clearly has its advantages, new technology is making
it easier to play such MP3-ROM discs in many places besides your computer.
Newer models of DVD-Video players are capable of playing the music
from MP3-ROMs, and interestingly enough, this ability is not found
on any of the high end models but is instead a feature of many of
the cheapest units. Small Discman style portable players are also
available for as little as $70, as well in-dash models for car stereo
systems. Having a six-disc changer box in your trunk is a thing of
the past when you can have over 12 hours of music on a single MP3-ROM.
Devices featuring this new technology are already in stores and for
the most part do not cost considerably more than traditional CD players.
The only thing keeping MP3-ROMs from breaking into the mainstream
is a false perception that it is overly complicated and a lack of
MP3 media being readily available in retail outlets, as the record
industry has failed to embrace it.
Video.
Black and white still from the DivX version of Saving
Private Ryan
While most people are aware of DVD-Video products and the benefits
that they provide over video stored on magnetic media such as VHS
tapes, few are aware of its history and the epic battle that was waged
for its control. Shortly after the debut of DVD technology, Circuit
City came out with a competing technology known as Digital Video Express
or Divx. While in most respects functionally identical to DVD, it
required a connection to your telephone line in order to watch movies,
as each viewing had to be validated by a computer which would bill
your credit card (a concept which is eerily similar to the new Digital
Rights Management to be incorporated into the new Microsoft Windows
XP). Circuit City claimed that the benefits of this system were that
it would allow people to rent movies and not have to return them as
they could keep the discs to rent again, or buy at a premium price
(discs could be "silvered" for unlimited viewing, but only
on your own Divx player). The support from the film industry was tremendous,
as they would be making money from every viewing of a disc, and be
guaranteed that pirated copies were not being watched as their database
would keep track of every movie that was watched. Opponents of Divx
believed that not only was it inferior, because the discs lacked the
bonus material often included with DVDs and options such as widescreen
formats, but also that the Big Brother tactic of monitoring viewers
was an invasion of personal privacy. Fearing that the film industry's
support for this format would lead to the early demise of the standard
DVD format, which was then known as Open DVD, they formed a massive
internet movement (with sites such as www.fightdivx.com)
to inform people of the risk that Divx posed, as well as describing
the deceitful marketing techniques that Circuit City was employing.
Techniques such as labeling Divx equipment as "advanced DVD players,"
offering fewer Open DVD movies in their stores, selling Divx players
to employees at substantial discount so they could recommend them
to customers over Open DVD, as well as allegedly creating web pages
by "fans" of Divx all over the internet. While this allegation
was denied by Circuit City and has yet to be substantiated (though
it is telling that the most famous of those web sites, the "Pro
Divx Association," was hosted by someone located under three
miles away from the Circuit City headquarters in Richmond, Virginia),
in the wake of the fake-hype masterpiece, The Blair Witch Project,
businesses are increasingly turning to such tactics, offering web-professionals
tens of thousands of dollars to create tacky, sloppy, and amateurish
appearing "fan" sites to promote business and to drum up
authentic grass-roots support.
While DVD prevailed in the end and caused Circuit City's stock to
crumble, to make matters more confusing, there is a new form of Divx
on the scene, which has a capital X and a whimsical "emoticon"
or smiley face attached to it, DivX ;-). Originally a "plug in"
for Windows Media Player, this new form of DivX allows you to view
MPEG-4 compressed video. Offering much higher compression (which means
similar quality at much smaller file sizes) than the MPEG-2 used in
standard DVD discs, it allows you to store near DVD quality video
on lower capacity formats. Movies can be "ripped" from DVD's,
and in a process similar to the creation of MP3s, can be encoded to
fit on one or two CD-ROMs--though this process can take nearly ten
hours even on the fastest of computers. These movies are then traded
on the internet among those with high-speed connections. Even more
popular than DVD rips, are "screeners" (which are ripped
versions of advanced copies movie studios send to the media and video
stores) and "tele-syncs" (high quality camera recordings
done in mostly foreign theatres) that allow you to watch a movie at
home while it is still in theatres, or in some cases, before it is
even released in theatres. DivX ;-) files can also be turned back
into MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 video, and be written to Video CD or Super Video
CD's on home computers. Video CD's have long been popular in Europe
and Asia and as a consequence of that, most DVD-Video players are
capable of playing these discs in people's living rooms--hence this
trading is seen as particularly dangerous by the film industry (their
pressure caused the notorious www.scour.com to declare bankruptcy
and disband their file-sharing service), even though they have been
supportive of the development of better MPEG compression technology
for their own ends. The best illustration of this is Sony's new Playstation
2. Because of the popularity of Video CD's in Asia, it became apparent
that the original Playstation could be hacked to play them on any
standard TV, which in turn made the easily duplicated Video CD's even
more popular. As a result of this, Sony, who has their own division
of home video products to defend from pirating, has made it impossible
for the DVD equipped Playstation 2 to play Video CD's, even though
that ability is a staple of DVD players.
Computers
Computer software has always been uniquely susceptible to piracy,
as it exists natively in a digital state. In the early days, software
often included elaborate questions which made you search through a
large manual for a specific word on a specific page and enter it to
gain access, or similar systems of lining up "code" wheels
that came with the program. These techniques often did more to annoy
legitimate users than to discourage pirates, who often had an easier
time with it, by disabling the codes outright, or by running databases
containing codes in list form (no pecking through the manual necessary).
The favorite tactic of software publishers has always been to move
their content up to a new form of media that consumers will be unable
to copy. Microsoft began shipping their software with the first diskette
formatted in a proprietary DMF 1.72 megabyte format, which was larger
than standard 1.44 megabyte disks. The real breakthrough was CD-ROMs,
as they were much larger than any other method of storage, and CD
Writers would not become affordable for years to come. Even so, it
was only a matter of time and publishers once again turned to mechanisms
that could prevent copying, such as attempts to confuse CD writers
and their software with intentional errors in CDs, as well as "dummy"
files which reported themselves as being too large to be copied. Other
systems such as the popular SafeDisc by Macrovision Corporation work
by including a digital signature or finger-print on each CD at the
time they are created and are very hard for people to duplicate on
their own equipment. This comes at a cost, however, as many models
of consumer CR-ROM drives have a problem reading them at all, leading
to much frustration as thousands of games (such as the popular
Diablo II) have been returned to stores by irate customers. As
usual, the mainstream consumer pays the price, while the more technologically
advanced pirates have web sites such as www.gamecopyworld.com
and www.megagames.com to aid them in duplicating software and bypassing
security mechanisms. As DVD writers are likely to become affordable
before software publishers actually start releasing programs on DVD
media, they are increasingly looking to produce online games which
either require a monthly fee to play, such as Ultima Online and Everquest,
or have individual serial numbers known as "CD keys" which
must be authenticated on the internet every time it is used, as in
the retail version of Counter-Strike.
Every year, Microsoft loses more money due to piracy than most of
its competitors make, putting the company in a unique situation of
having to take the battle to pirates instead of playing defensively.
While piracy in the US is indeed a problem, it is in foreign markets
(where large factories and not casual users are producing the illegal
copies) that Microsoft is losing the most revenue. In China, nearly
90% of software is pirated, and in Vietnam, the number soars to 98%.
To combat this, Microsoft is moving to a radically different method
of selling software. Instead of purchasing the right to install and
use software (tantamount to owning it in public perception) a new
model of subscription will be employed, where you pay to use the software
for a certain amount of time, a process akin to renting it. The new
Microsoft Windows XP operating system and the new XP version of Microsoft
Office will require "activation" where your computer sends
a message over the internet to Microsoft containing a code tailored
specifically to your machine. That individual copy of an XP product
will only operate on that individual computer and subsequent attempts
to install it on a different one will fail. This could potentially
create problems as users upgrade their computer, as the software senses
it having a different configuration. Will it stop pirating? Copies
of Office XP, which has yet to be released commercially, and a code
to bypass the authentication system (reported to be for Microsoft
internal office use) are already circulating on Resnet, the network
for the UB Resident Halls.
Conclusion
As technology increasingly infringes upon the holders of copyrights,
it appears that companies such as Microsoft have not learned from
the debacle of Circuit City's Divx format--that users are not willing
to sacrifice their own privacy for corporations' bottom lines. Such
attempts are bound to end in failure as the growing backlash against
such tactics is no longer strictly rational, with consumers fighting
even against "watchdog" innovations designed to make buying
and selling on the web safer for themselves, such as the ID's encoded
in each of Intel's Pentium III chips. Only time will tell how well
American individualism will be suited towards a world where nothing
is bought nor sold, but only leased, but in the mean time, we have
to establish that it will be on our terms--not theirs.
