User:Daniel Fisher

Developed by KCB336 New Media Technologies students in the Creative Industries Faculty, QUT.

I'm a Creative Industries student studying Journalism, Communication Design and Digital Media.

Annotated Bibliography: The History of Napster and its Effects on Software Piracy and Copyrighted Music

Daniel Fisher

Ewing, J & Lowry,T (2004) It Seemed Like A Good Idea... Business Week. New York: Aug 2, 2004., Iss. 3894; pg. 60 Retrieved 12 Aug 2004

http://proquest.umi.com.gateway.library.qut.edu.au/pqdweb?index=0&did=000000671002671&SrchMode=1&sid=1&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1092039782&clientId=14394

The fallout from Napster’s legal battles rolls on as this article reports that even though the music industry is once again increasing sales, media company Bertelsmann is facing up to $17 Billion in lawsuits relating to it’s association with Napster. Bertelsmann has been accused of funding the P2P service and keeping it running thus allowing it to facilitate the illegal exchange of copyrighted material. This is relevant to my topic as it is the latest development in the history of Napster.

If the allegations are true, then the most interesting part of this article is the hypocritical behaviour of Bertelsmann. Its subsidiary BMG was helping to sue Napster for copyright infringements in the first place.

Lessig, L. (2003). Lessig blog. Retrieved 12 Aug. 2004 from Stanford Law School

http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/blog/

Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. He is well known for his efforts at changing discources for copyright laws online and has founded Stanford's centre for Internet and Society. This blog is a collective of ideas surrounding P2P and the various ways in which copright laws can be implemented to better suit an online environment. Lessig's blog is quite popular, with a post made by American Congressman Rick Boucher comparing the piano roll to P2P attracting 57 comments in one day.

This site is an invaluable resource for up to date ideas and information on the legal debate over P2P and the discources for how to handle legal proceedings in virtual communities. Lessig was involved with the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. This act meant that, whereas previously, a copyright would last for the life of the author, plus fifty years, it would now last an extra twenty. This act is being debated and challenged, as it restricts public access to many works which could be of use to the public and are not being made use of by the copyright holders.

McCandless, D. (2001). Warez world: The world of software pirates: A story of hunters and gatherers. Telepolis 26 July. Retrieved 9 Aug. 2004

http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/9170/1.html

This article is about the politics of sharing and trading pirated software (Warez) on the Internet. There are several references to Napster and it’s significance to Warez trading and distribution. Whilst, although this article is not directly related to peer to peer software, it does outline some of the viewpoints of both the software companies and the pirates, as well as explaining the justifications that pirates have for their actions.

This article tends to be sympathetic towards the Warez traders. It explains that when software companies claim to be losing millions of dollars each year to software piracy, this is probably not the case. Most of the people aquiring illegal copies of programs do not intend to use them or would not normally have a use for them, they simply like to collect the files and store them on their hard drives as if they were trophies. The article tells us that much of the piracy online is just a game with participants competing to be the first to upload a new hacked program. The author interviews the head of software company Novell’s anti piracy division, Martin Smith. He states the intention of his company, "We'll take out some people who're downloading this material - the gnats - and then we'll take out some of the larger, more organized guys. We want to create a climate of fear."

A cunning way that software companies tried to combat piracy was to create software that needed a physical key to operate. They envisioned that hackers would have to take hundreds of years to process a psuedo code which could unlock the software. However, this did not work because the “warez gods�, as one of them self proclaims in the article managed to simply delete the code embedded in the programs asking for the software to communicate with the key. The hackers are still to be outsmarted by the software companies.

The invention of the Mpeg Layer 3 (Mp3) format of sound file compression, which was the format employed by most Napster users, is also outlined in this article. It is of interest to my research that, according to this article, a hacker by the alias of IgNorAMUS, a member of the Radium audiowarez group rejected the original intention of Mp3’s creator, German research institute Frauenhofer-Gesellschaft, for it to be an internal format. This would have meant that Mp3’s could have only been played on a specific player similar to Quicktime movies. IgNorAMUS decided to reprogram the codec to allow it to be played on any player and in doing so discovered that he was able to greatly improve its efficiency. Napster is widely known as the first program which allowed music to be accesable to people for free, yet software exchanging was also very poplular so this article is very relevent to my topic

McChesney, R. (1997). Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy. Seven Stories Press. New York

[ISBN 1888363479]

This book concerns the control of media through large scale corporations. It will be used as a reference point to the Left-Wing attitude towards corporate control of mass media. Record companies and bands such as Metallica exercised their power in having Napster redesigned.

McChesney’s work will be used as a source of information concerning such corporate control of democratic media technologies. He includes a chapter on the Internet and the Digital Revolution. It is an interesting read as it is written seven years ago and predicts some things that have eventuated, such as the slow take up of Broadband on a global scale.

MediaChannel.org (2004). Frequently asked questions. Retrieved 12 Aug. 2004

http://www.mediachannel.org/about/FAQ.shtml

This is a self proclaimed “media issues supersite�. Its aim is to be a source of information for students, professionals, critics, activists and academics. This website claims to look at issues internationally rather than focussing on specific identities and groups. As with many media monitoring organisations, this site has a definite political leaning towards the Left. It appears to be a valuable source of information on general media topics and a quick search of the site with the query, “Napster�, turned up 19 articles.

Napster (2004) What Is Napster Retrieved 12 Aug 2004

http://www.napster.com/what_is_napster.html

This is an explanation of the Napster of today. Where as previously, Napster was a free index of people’s files they were willing to share, it is now essentially a database of songs which can be legally downloaded by users willing to pay $9.95US per month. Napster also now provides genre based Internet stations with streaming audio. Napster allows you to download songs into a library and listen to them from within the program. If you would like to burn these songs to compact disc you are able to pay a fee to do so and essentially purchase the song. Napster allows 30 second previews of songs to non-subscribers who can then purchase songs or whole albums online. As the central case study for my essay will be Napster, this site is essential as a reference point.

Shirky, C. (2001). P2P smuggled in under cover of darkness. OpenP2P.com 14 Feb. 2001. Retrieved 8 Aug 2004

http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2001/02/14/clay_darkness.html.

The effect that Napster and ICQ had on business communications is investigated in this article. We are told that Napster became a preferred method of file transferring amoungst many employees who shunned traditional Email attachments for their limitations. Shirky tells of the attitude of IT professionals towards P2P applications at the time of their emergence and of the loss of control over network security experienced by administrators.

The author makes the assumtion that the inception of P2P software into the workplace is actually more a result of rebellion against the IT department by the user. Whether or not this is true is debatable, however it is an interesting statement about P2P software and shows yet another way it has unsettled a group of people. The information in this article will be useful as it is informative of some uses for P2P software that are not part of the mainstream paradigm of simply searching and downloading files.

Schumacher-Rasmussen, E. (2003). Commentary: Roxio, Napster, and why the music industry just doesn’t get it. Emedia, February. Retrieved 12 Aug 2004

http://www.emedialive.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?CategoryID=44&ArticleID=4984

This article is about the company Roxio and it's $5 Million purchase of Napster's remaining assets after it's original demise. At the time of writing it is not publicly known that Napster will re-emerge as a subscription based system, however the authors make mention of such applications and predict that free programs such as Kazaa will be more successful. So far they are right, yet as file integrity on Kazaa and similar networks is becoming increasingly degraded the future popularity of such programs is in doubt.

Spychecker.com (2004). What Is Spyware? Retrieved 12 Aug 2004

http://www.spychecker.com/spyware.html

One of the major issues with the sharing of files and in some cases with P2P programs themselves, is the recent explosion of spyware. Spyware is a program which is embedded within other programs and most people do not even know it exists. These unseen programs collect information on users and send them to companies which sell this information to advertising agencies.

Some programs will also cause windows to pop up on your screen randomly which contain advertisements. Spychecker is a website dedicated to the removal of these programs and lists various cleaning software like Ad Aware and Pest Patrol which detect spyware and delete it from your system. This website contains a lot of information on spyware and is a decent resource.

Ward, M. (2001). Why MP3 piracy is much bigger than Napster. BBC News Online 13 Feb. 2001. Retrieved 7 Aug 2004:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1168087.stm

This article is written after the original Napster was forced into submission through legal action. Ward predicts that shutting down Napster will not mean the end of rampant file sharing on the Internet and with the benefit of hindsight we know that the author was right. New applications such as Kazaa have emerged in Napster’s place just has he predicted.

Ward explains the system of indexing which Napster used and the differing systems that were emerging at the time which were decentralised, thus disallowing the termination of a central unit of facilitation. It is somewhat ironic that the original intention of the Internet was to have a decentralised network which the US Government’s Military could use in case of an emergency or attack. Now the US Government wants to shut down something which thrives on and effectively utilises their design’s major strength.

Wired (2004) Napster Settles With Metallica. Retrieved 12 Aug 2004

http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,45216,00.html

This article is about the court settlement between Napster and heavy metal band Metallica. It summarises the outcome of the case where Napster was forced to stay offline, until its software could be re-engineered to not allow the transmission of copyrighted material. The article states that as part of the settlement, Metallica agreed to allow legal copies of it’s own material to be distributed once a system was set up where users could pay for their downloads.

According to this article, Napster attempted to go back online in 2001 with a fingerprinting technology, however this new technology was only 99% effective and the courts rules that only once there was an infallible system could Napster go back online. Fingerprinting technology never was perfected and the original Napster never went back online. This may have been due to the fact that, as this article reports, Napster’s subscription service was already being developed. The court battle with Metallica and other bands and record companies was a major event in Napster’s history and this is a relevant article which is useful to my research.

practice

main page

Daniel Fisher 13:33, 26 Jul 2004 (EST)