Misguided Napster Articles
Here is another example of what happens when a journalist tries to think about what’s going to happen to the record industry because of Napster. He basically suggests that the recording industry is going to come up with its own version of MP3, only their version you’ll pay for.
He almost dismisses the fact that the MP3 format was introduced and developed entirely by the public. But it’s in fact this very point that ensures that the record industry will never seize control over it. To illustrate this, I’d like to use The Allegory of the Cave, from Plato’s Republic. In case you’re not familiar, it tells the story of people who live their whole lives in a cave, watching shadows playing on the wall in front of them. No one tries to look behind them to see what’s producing the shadows, they’re just content with looking forward, being almost hypnotized by them. One brave soul decides to venture out of the cave, and into the sunlight. What he experiences is both painful and liberating: the sunlight burns into his eyes, but he realizes the truth. This, of course, is where my analogy breaks down, because the character cannot deal with the truth. But I digress.
The people in the cave, to me, are like everyone who’s ever purchased a CD without knowing truly what forces lie behind the production of it. To us, it seemed as though basically the Band On The CD went through the entire process themselves, with the record company only having a logo on the bottom: the shadows on the wall. The MP3 revolution, however, has served the purpose of the brave person leaving the cave, only we are all now enlightened as to how the industry really is, and we now know we have power.
Maybe this is a fantasy of mine, but I see the record industry slowly falling into oblivion. They will not be able to harness this digital format, only succumb to it. I’m not saying Napster is the answer, but it certainly was the catalyst. The ingredients for this revolution have been around for a long time. Anyone who remembers bookmarking Hotline servers, FTP sites and Newsgroups to find the latest music knows this, but it wasn’t readily accessible to the public. Now, with broadband internet access in the home, Napster, and cheap easy-to-use MP3 players on the market, we have the power. The RIAA might as well go after Covad and AT&T for providing DSL and Cable access. They might as well go after Intel and Motorola for making faster processors. How about Diamond Multimedia for making the first really cool MP3 players?
This ‘MP3 thing’ is not just going to go away if Napster is done away with. And I’m not just talking about Gnutella and whatever else. I’m talking about the fact that we have control over what the record industry spoonfeeds us, and we don’t have to pay $17.99 for it any more.