Two cheers for new Napster and its fees

Free music is still with us but if the new Napster takes off fans may have to dip into their pockets to maintain choice. PETER GRIFFIN reports.

"So how many of you download songs illegally over the internet?"

It would have been a great question to ask from the main stage of last Friday's Big Day Out concert at Ericsson Stadium.

Out of the mouths of nu-metallers System of a Down or synth-pop kings New Order, both of whom are well represented on renegade file swapping services such as Gnutella and Grokster, it would have been greeted one of two ways - with a rebellious roar of approval or guilty silence.

Because dodgy downloading is alive and well in New Zealand - especially among the young, white, middle-class, which seemed to comprise the bulk of the Big Day Out's soggy audience.

These days when you go to a party you are more likely to trip over your mate's computer hard drive than the stereo, as you stumble around his lounge.

While there are limp signs that 2002 will be the year that legitimacy is finally brought to music download services, the lure of sweet, free music will make it hard to drag the millions of signed-up users away from the peer-to-peer start-ups that have proved to be such thorns in the side of the music industry.

The return of rehabilitated music junkie Napster shows little hope that the industry can straighten out its computer-savvy fans.

The old favourite Napster, which last year attracted 60 million members before lawsuits shut it down in July, is back online in a limited form, back to its old tricks but with fewer songs and a less charitable frame of mind.

Not many Kiwis will have had a chance to get a feel for the newly legitimised file-swapping service, which features 110,000 songs from a list of indie music labels.

A beta version of the revamped interface was released a couple of weeks ago to just 20,000 lucky users - a tiny sliver of the two million Napsterites (including myself) who asked to join the trial.

But already the beta testers are vocal on the web, in news groups and on tech websites - telling the rest of us about Napster Version 2's pros and cons. There seem to be more of the latter.

Gone, they say, are the millions of songs Napster once boasted, leaving largely unknown bands that in many cases give their music away on the web anyway.

The most annoying thing to free-rein downloaders is the new .nap file type. Similar to mp3s but encoded to ensure they are not copied from the hard drive or transferred to CDs or digital music players, making the prospect of sharing music with friends bleak under the new service.

Without unlimited access, the community spirit is largely gone. Beta testers report as few as 200 users online at one time.

And then you have to pay. While the beta testers are allowed up to 50 free downloads, eventually the service will come with a fee of $US5 to $US10.

There have been some welcome modifications. As with the services that sprung up in Napster's absence, version 2 allows the resumption of incomplete song downloads. So if your internet connection drops, you don't lose the song you were downloading. The new software will also reject low-quality copies of songs - those recorded at a slow bit rate.

And the interface, by all accounts is impressive.

Version 2 is also more politically correct, including content blocks that let parents filter songs with naughty words in them.

But generally, there is a strong sense of scepticism surrounding Napster's new service, from all quarters - analysts through to software developers and most importantly, potential users.

"Man, I miss Napster," Kellin says of the anarchic original on the Slashdot message board.

"These other p2p programs are interesting, but they sure as hell don't have anywhere near the volume Napster had ... "

"I can go to KaZaA, download all I want for free, choose from millions, and play them every place I want to," an indignant John explains on news website ZDNet.

"Hmmm ... are these people stupid, or what?" he asks of Napster's visionaries.

Until the freewheeling Gnutellas and Groksters of this world collapse under the weight of legal action, Napster or its fee-charging counterparts have little chance of pulling crowds.

Still, legal action is well under way. KaZaA has halted downloads of its file-sharing software, following directives handed down by an Amsterdam court in November. Suits lodged against Grokster, MusicCity and KaZaA by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) continue in the US.

Napster CEO Konrad Hilbers is optimistically expecting to settle its outstanding lawsuits with the music industry and strike licensing deals with the big labels - Sony, Warner, BMG, Universal and EMI - by the end of March.

Without the big labels, Napster will sink without trace - along with the $US100 million German heavyweight Bertelsmann has sunk into getting the file-swapper back on its feet.

The labels are hedging their bets, refusing to support Napster until they gauge the success of their own ventures, Pressplay and Musicnet, which have opened for business with monthly fees ranging from $US10 to $US25

But Napster isn't doing much to smooth the path with the music heavyweights. Hilber has been openly attacking his potential music suppliers, pushing for Congress to pay closer attention to the big labels and their ventures in the online world.

Pursuing an anti-trust argument, Hilbers says the labels should be forced to share their songs with file-sharers for appropriate royalties, removing their monopoly on the music they own.

So far, his argument has attracted the attention of federal judge Marilyn Hall Patel, who has been critical of the joint ventures between music labels.

Meanwhile, the US Department of Justice has waded in with an antitrust investigation of MusicNet and Pressplay to determine whether they have worked together to fix the prices for their music.

It's a complicated picture as the music industry tries to slice up the digital music landscape.

But the music doesn't stop, and neither do the illicit downloads.

Napster

Kazaa

Music Net

Press Play

RIAA

Gnutella

Grokster

* Tell me about your music dowloading life - especially if you use the new Napster. peter_griffin@nzherald.co.nz