Hollywood execs will be taking a keen interest in this week’s court battle
between the music industry and Napster—whose software makes it easy to
locate and download MP3 music files. That’s because studio bosses know similar
problems are headed their way. Movies can now be stripped from DVDs (the subject
of a court case last week—see www. opendvd.com and www.mpaa.org) and
compressed. The files are compact enough to be transmitted over a broadband
Internet connection—or squashed onto a single CD. There’s a website
detailing how this technology works at www.mydivx.com.
The US Senate’s Judiciary Committee has been deluged with e-mails
supporting Napster. Download sites (www.mp3board.com and www.napster.com) help
people swap MP3 files free of charge, by providing search facilities and links
to sites where music is available. Now the Recording Industry Association of
America (www.riaa.com), backed by bands such as Metallica, is suing Napster.
Napster has counter-sued, claiming “fair use” under copyright laws.
Metallica’s drummer, Lars Ulrich, told the Senate Committee
(www.metallica.com/news/2000/ 000711.html) why the band is backing a lawsuit
that will annoy so many Net users. “Napster hijacked our music without asking.
Our music simply became available as free downloads on the Napster system…It’s
like each [Napster user] won one of those contests where you get turned loose in
a store for five minutes and get to keep everything you can load into your
shopping cart. With Napster, though, there’s no time limit and everyone’s a
winner—except the artist.”
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The latest version of Microsoft’s Windows Media Player can copy CD music
onto a hard drive, find MP3s on the Net and load them into players
(http://windowsmedia.com). Down-loading takes ages, but it will be bundled with
the Millennium Edition of Windows—out in September.
