Napster's Requiem

The Harvard community will soon enter a period of mourning for that loveable headphone-wearing cat who will now, slowly but surely, disappear from desktops across campus into extinction. Yes, the death knell of Napster has at last come, much to the chagrin of the undergraduate community. By affirming the illegality of downloading copyrighted music, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last week all but guaranteed that Napster will soon be nothing more than a fond memory. But while the court's decision has been lauded by the recording industry as a moral triumph, we cannot help but wonder whether the death of Napster was really a victory for the rest of us.

We worry that the ruling against Napster threatens to unfairly restrict the legal flow of information online. The court rightly recognized that Napster, just like a VCR, is capable of substantial non-infringing uses, such as the exchange of songs that are not copyrighted--for example, files released by artists hoping to make a name for themselves. Yet it also required that Napster act to prevent the transfer of copyrighted music once notified by the copyright owners. Given that there is no easy way for a computer to tell whether a piece of music is copyrighted or not--especially when two songs have the same title--Napster may, depending on the wording of the final injunction, be forced to shut down for fear of further infringement. If the fair, legal uses of Napster will no longer be available because the service cannot be protected from music pirates, a legal precedent will be set for limiting file-sharing between computers, one that may prevent future innovations in online communication.

But the Napster fans' resentment over the ruling runs far deeper than the mere restriction of fair computer use--it concerns the proper role of copyright. The fundamental principle behind copyright law is to protect the rights of individuals to control the copying and distribution of their creative works. For artists in the music industry, copyrights protect the songs that they write and perform and allow them to earn a living as musicians. Thus, when a person buys a CD or a tape, part of the proceeds go to the artist who originally recorded the songs. This intended purpose of a copyright seems morally fair--people should be compensated for their hard work, and they should have control over their own intellectual property. It's also a good idea economically, giving artists an incentive to create. In this respect, Napster was unfairly denying artists their proper compensation for the distribution of their songs.

But currently, when a CD is purchased, the majority of the proceeds go to the record label that produces the CD instead of to the artist. This system of compensation may have made sense when the only means of distributing music was through the sale of cassettes and CDs--the companies that made music portable deserved a slice of the pie. But as technology has progressed, the vested interest of the recording industry in maintaining the status quo threatens to undermine new and better ways of distributing music.

As access to the Internet spreads, it may soon be possible to download copyrighted music directly from the artists, paying in advance for the service, and to bypass the middlemen of the recording industry. The recording industry, which would lose much of its revenue in such a system, should not be able to block entrepreneurs from entering the market and attempting to create these alternate distribution channels. Unfortunately, it seems that the Napster ruling--by placing impossible demands on online distributors--may help prevent these new channels from emerging.

Admittedly, many students are upset by the prospect of losing the ability to download any song they like, anytime they want, for free. We recognize that artists have a legitimate claim to receive compensation for their work. However, the death of Napster will neither stop the trade of copyrighted works over the Internet nor provide artists with the compensation they deserve. Artists and the public would be better served by a new means of online music distribution that directly connects consumers to creators. But given the Ninth Circuit's ruling, that prospect seems exceedingly bleak.