The new Napster is irrelevant

Once on the cutting edge, Napster is now irrelevant. There are now thousands of file-sharing programs out there that offer the exact same thing for free. Nobody really cares about the cat in the headphones anymore.

The recording industry and paid music downloading services are in a lose-lose situation when it comes to illegal peer-to-peer file sharing. There are ways to stem the tide, like using more effective scare tactics or increasing awareness among parents that they are the ones accountable for their children's actions online. But they have to move fast.

Let's face it. The main issue in the downloading battle is money and convenience. With the invention of the basic file-sharing program, you don't need to take the time to drive to their record store and shell out $15 for a CD anymore. All you have to do was download a program into your computer and access all the music you want, with all kinds of songs, ranging from oldies (the '30s) to now (2004). If you need a CD to listen to in the car, you could just burn songs onto it from the computer, and voila! You've got a relatively good quality song and CD collection now.

And all this from the comfy setting of your room, den, office or basement (or wherever you keep your computer). Did I mention it doesn't cost a cent?

The second issue in the music-sharing battle are issues with legality, which really is not a problem for most people, particularly young ones. Kids now growing up with file sharing don't see it as anything out of the ordinary. Many don't even step foot into traditional music stores.

In response to the file-sharing threat, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) filed lawsuits against various people of all different ages throughout the nation from the typical bubble-gum teenager to a retired school bus driver after tracking IP addresses from different programs.

According to MusicUnited.Org, a coalition of artists and institutions involved in the record business, downloading music from peer-to-peer networks like Kazaa, Morpheus or Gnutella is just as bad as shoplifting a CD from a music store — and the penalties are much greater if you get caught. The criminal penalties can be as much as up to five years in jail or $250,000 in fines.

The lawsuits made a huge buzz in the media that year, with headlines about illegal file-sharing splashed across every major newspaper and magazine. Then, all of a sudden, it stopped. The RIAA kept quiet for a while, and are still keeping hush-hush about their plans to stop illegal downloading. If the rumors that the RIAA will start slapping down lawsuits again in January is true, it should prove somewhat effective in stopping the flow of illegal downloading, but only if they target as many people as possible. They also should litter it around the media as much as possible, make the headlines again and spread it around the Internet, not through Internet ads, but through banner ads to popular underground sites and forums. They need to somehow spread the word to parents too and really pound in that idea that the parents are the ones responsible for their children's actions, and thus, are the ones subject to jail or fines.

Another way recording companies and artists are trying to fend off the rise of illegal downloading is having more legal downloading programs, which are helping — somewhat.

New findings have shown that programs like Napster and iTunes are the most widely recognized brands in fee-based downloading of 2004, along with other programs like RealPlayer Music Store, MusicMatch, Real One Radio Pass, MTV.com and Walmart.com, which brings hope to industries that wish death to file sharing. However, name recognition doesn't necessarily mean more people are buying songs from those companies. It just means that they know that you can buy songs from those companies. Again, why pay a price of 99 cents per song on iTunes or $9.95 an album on Napster if you can just get all that for free?

Instead, the RIAA or the coalition at MusicUnited.Org needs to come up with a better alternative than costly programs like iTunes, ones that are much less expensive, but that smart consumers would be willing to pay for. One smart idea that many more underground programs are coming up with is having a monthly subscription (some as cheap as 99 cents), which is still completely legal — however, their music archives are sketchy at best. If more mainstream programs like iTunes or Napster could adopt this "cheap and legal" philosophy, it would attract a lot more people. Now they just have to figure out how to make money off of it.

So unless industries comes up with a better alternative or more effective scare tactics, people will just keep on downloading.

For better or for worse, the file-sharing revolution of the millennium didn't just allow people to download music illegally, it set a new precedent and a new idea for the future - that people could truly think out the box and spark up something completely radical.

People are already running full speed ahead with this idea. There are sites where you can download TV shows before they air. Sites where you can download all different kinds of software, like computer games or programs. Sites where you can call anywhere in the world for free from the Internet.

Now it just the question of who is going to strike next.

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Kudos to Aragon's Interact Club, which collected 5,613 pounds of food (2,000 more than last year) in their canned food drive. However, other schools are still running their food drives, so just keep the cans coming in.

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Scholarship Savvy: Can't get enough of novelist Ayn Rand's books? Something could come out of it — check out the "Anthem" Essay Contest (for ninth and 10th graders) and "The Fountainhead" Essay Contest (for 11th and 12th graders.) To participate, you must read the novel and write an essay on a selected topic that can be found on the Web site. Essays are judged on both style and content. The winning essay must demonstrate an outstanding grasp of the philosophic meaning of the book. Complete contest guidelines are available at: www.aynrand.org.

Margot Leong is a senior at Menlo School. Her column appears in the Friday edition of the Daily Journal. She can be reached at margot.leong@gmail.com.