On July 28, the Napster server farm resembled an online version of the last days of Saigon: Judging from the traffic, nobody wanted to be left behind. By the end of the day, there were plenty of helicopters for everybody. Napster was set to be shut down, thanks to a preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel. The injunction ordered Napster to stop distributing copyrighted music recordings until the recording industry's lawsuit against the company goes to trial.
After Napster filed an appeal, the 9th Circuit Court ruled that the site could continue to operate while a trial is pending. But during the brief period when it appeared the plug would be pulled, the response of Napster users and competitors was interesting. Other peer-to-peer networks such as Gnutella shut down their Web sites, strengthening their capacity in preparation of the onslaught that never came. Meanwhile, chat rooms and bulletin boards bristled with indignation that users' unfettered access to free music was being threatened.
If and when Napster is shut down, the net effect of the injunction will be that of the biggest hog leaving the trough. More attention will be given to not only other peer-to-peer services, but also to Internet sites such as Scour.net, which searches the Internet for MP3 files by specified artists.
The eventual disappearance of Napster will also lead to more artists--frustrated by dealing with record companies and empowered by the idea of direct distribution--taking matters into their own hands, as in the case of Matt Johnson, leader (and sometimes sole member) of British band The The.
On the band's Web site http://thethe.com, Johnson posted a lengthy manifesto outlining his plans to "offer track by track, week by week free downloads of my latest album 'NakedSelf.'…Artists are now poised to come off the nipple of the major labels and finally stand on their own two feet," Johnson explained.
"With this greater responsibility will come a greater workload but artists can finally become masters of their own destinies. New technology, both in cheap, high-quality recording equipment and the tremendous potential of the Internet, mean that it's possible for musicians to fund their own recordings, own their own copyrights, distribute their own music, and control their own careers. The the middlemen will be cut down to size."
Johnson remarked on his Web site that the trend toward self-distribution is nothing new. "This…reminds me of where I came from," he wrote. "As a teenager I was turned down by every indie and major label in the UK at least three times before I finally got a recording contract, so in the meantime I started producing and selling my own cassettes at the various gigs I attended. It was a liberating and empowering experience and taught me how to stay positive in the face of apathy."
The hot list: Longtime Napster advocate Courtney Love recently filled Hole's Web site with dozens of free, downloadable tracks, all of which are rare or unreleased. A couple even feature her late husband, Kurt Cobain. Fans of the Cure will want to grab an exclusive remix of "Out of ThisWorld" by Paul Oakenfold. Finally, if you've never visited Bob Dylan's official Web site, you might be intrigued to know that it always contains live and rare recordings exclusive to the site. The tracks don't change as often as I'd like (and they're in RealAudio only), but it's still a nice touch. The site currently contains six songs from a November 1999 Dylan show in East Rutherford, N.J.
