What Napster Means

While searching for information about Metallica’s action against Napster, I came across fan sites from which recordings, MIDIs, tabulature, photographs and even simple lyrics were removed at the demand of Metallica’s lawyers. As it happens, I’ve not yet had the pleasure of familiarity with Metallica’s music; in the wake of their actions against not only Napster, but their own fans as well, I shall not be disposed to gain such acquaintance.

Copyright and patent traditionally serve to strike a balance between the benefits for all citizens of open access to information, knowledge and culture, and the assurance of potential for profit from creative and intellectual work needed to make practical the investment of time and capital in the pursuit of art, science and technology. The privileges of copyright and patent have always been seen as limited rights, granted by government for the public good; yet recently, apologists for ever more stringent copyright and patent law would have us believe that some intrinsic right of property should thus be protected against usurpation by “thieves.” In terms of legal and social history, this is utter fiction. We must, of course, continue to balance the public and private values of the products of creative and intellectual endeavor; but just what balance we choose, and how we undertake to maintain it, will have far-reaching effect on our future.

• Will we make art and science, the sharing of knowledge and the fruits of culture and technology primary values, entrusting business with the task of adapting itself both to sustain and to benefit from those achievements?
• Or will we place commerce and investment interests first, relegating “intellectual property” and “creative product” to the position of mere implements in an economic quest?

If we choose the former paradigm, those in the business of producing and marketing creative works may have to struggle to find ways to compete favorably with what consumers can obtain without charge. This won't always be easy or painless; but the survivors will have adapted well to the native characteristics of the “digital millennium.”

If we choose the latter course, we will fight emerging technologies in an attempt to preserve an economic framework appropriate to an earlier time. We will create a network of rules and regulations that will be unintuitive to the ordinary people to whom they apply and will be enforceable only erratically, or by grossly intrusive measures. Many citizens will never internalize the purported ethic; and draconian measures will be necessary to counterbalance the relative infrequency with which violators can be identified and punished.

Surely none should be more aware of the threat of subjugating art and science to economics and law than artists and scientists themselves. Legislators will not necessarily lead us well; courts will not always tell us what is wise. As future practices are being forged, it is imperative that those most intimately involved with creative endeavor use the tools of technology and jurisprudence with care: both have the capacity to be destructive. Creative professionals — and the individuals and companies that profit from their efforts — are ill-advised to defend their wealth by attacking the broader interests of the arts and sciences from which it proceeds; for musicians to “protect” a “right of control” of dubious realizable value at the expense of alienating the fan base that supports them is either arrogant or ignorant. It is perhaps the case that some of Metallica’s fans have used technology irresponsibly; it is most certainly the case that Metallica are wielding copyright law irresponsibly.

I'm not a Napster user, but I am a music lover, and I use the Internet daily. The threat that overzealous pursuit of various “intellectual property rights” will in large measure transform what could be the world’s greatest public library into little more than the world’s biggest sales pitch looms constantly before us. I doubt that I am alone in finding myself little inclined to purchase the work of musicians whose grasp for control dominates their appreciation of their fans, and leads them to lose sight of hope for the future of art, science and technology in what could be a world almost without boundaries — or a world of perpetual struggle in enforcement and litigation.

Sincerely,

Coises@MindSpring.com [now Webmaster@Coises.com]
Randall Joseph Fellmy
Chandler, AZ