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The Real Problem with Napster Lawsuits

By now, everyone is very familiar with the fact that Metallica, Dr. Dre, the RIAA and others are suing Napster in order to keep their copyright privileges intact.

Pop Quiz: What prompted Metallica's lawsuit and what are these lawsuits really about?

While Metallica was working on their song for the soundtrack to the movie Mission Impossible II, a pre-release version of the song made it into the Napster loop.

(On a different, but related note, Eminem was forced to bump up the release date of his second CD due to the fact that some MP3 tracks were trading on Napster weeks before the CD was due out.)

Let's take a few steps back and see what is wrong with this picture.

First let's see how an MP3 is entered into the Napster trading circles. For this to happen, these requirements MUST be met:

• Someone must purposely compress the song into the MP3 format.
• The MP3 must be placed on a computer that has internet access.
• That same computer must have Napster installed and running.
• The previously mentioned MP3 must be in a folder that is declared safe for Napster to scan and upload MP3's from.
• Someone else must be looking for that song (or artist). In the case of Metallica who has so many different songs available, the chances of this particular MP3 popping up in a random "Metallica" search is unlikely.
• Once someone has downloaded that particular MP3, they must spread the word that this particular item is available.

Only after ALL of these requirements are established, will the song be "out in the open".

In others words either someone wanted those MP3's to get into the market or the recording companies SECURITY is so bad, that they couldn't keep secrets if their life depends on it (and it does).

Fact number two: As I've stated before, the RIAA is, in my opinion, blowing smoke about copyright infringement killing their income when they are still experiencing great CD sales.

Question: How greedy do you have to be to complain about losing profit when you're in the middle of record sales?

(RUBAK.COM prediction: 8-1-2000 - Look for the price of CD's to rise significantly. The excuse will be that the recording industry needs to compensate for losing so much money due to illegal mp3 downloads.)

Bottom line:

These MP3 lawsuits are about two things: Security and GREED.

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