Hollywood execs will be taking a keen interest in this week鈥檚 court battle
between the music industry and Napster鈥攚hose software makes it easy to
locate and download MP3 music files. That鈥檚 because studio bosses know similar
problems are headed their way. Movies can now be stripped from DVDs (the subject
of a court case last week鈥攕ee www. opendvd.com and www.mpaa.org) and
compressed. The files are compact enough to be transmitted over a broadband
Internet connection鈥攐r squashed onto a single CD. There鈥檚 a website
detailing how this technology works at www.mydivx.com.
The US Senate鈥檚 Judiciary Committee has been deluged with e-mails
supporting Napster. Download sites (www.mp3board.com and www.napster.com) help
people swap MP3 files free of charge, by providing search facilities and links
to sites where music is available. Now the Recording Industry Association of
America (www.riaa.com), backed by bands such as Metallica, is suing Napster.
Napster has counter-sued, claiming 鈥渇air use鈥� under copyright laws.
Metallica鈥檚 drummer, Lars Ulrich, told the Senate Committee
(www.metallica.com/news/2000/ 000711.html) why the band is backing a lawsuit
that will annoy so many Net users. 鈥淣apster hijacked our music without asking.
Our music simply became available as free downloads on the Napster system鈥t鈥檚
like each [Napster user] won one of those contests where you get turned loose in
a store for five minutes and get to keep everything you can load into your
shopping cart. With Napster, though, there鈥檚 no time limit and everyone鈥檚 a
winner鈥攅xcept the artist.鈥�
Advertisement
The latest version of Microsoft鈥檚 Windows Media Player can copy CD music
onto a hard drive, find MP3s on the Net and load them into players
(http://windowsmedia.com). Down-loading takes ages, but it will be bundled with
the Millennium Edition of Windows鈥攐ut in September.
