Napster Question (Was Audio Books Being Shared)

[Debra Shapiro]

>
>Topic No. 10
>
>Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 11:21:56 -0400
>From: "Jerry Kuntz" <jkuntz at rcls.org>
>
>
>Hey, I just got the dime in the mail from Eric, too! Actually, the thread
>came around to the point that there are emerging technologies that could
>preserve copyright in a napster-like distributed environment. BTW, my
>original post on the topic wasn't anti-Napster; it was just pointing out the
>likely alarm with which the ebook industry is viewing Napster and how that
>might effect the technologies *they* will use to develop their encryption
>schemes...which might make the development of ebook servers for libraries
>that will allow sharing and downloading much more problematic.
>As for the Grateful Dead being a model for life beyond copyright, that seems
>like an unrealistic solution for authors, unless John Updike plays a really
>groovy guitar.

Yeah, you're right about the Dead, even though I have once or twice 
described Napster as something like Grateful Dead tape trading -- it 
is really a little different, especially in terms of how much it 
flouts copyright law. The Dead basically did an end run around the 
recording industry.

The Grateful Dead *let* fans tape their live shows -- they even set 
aside a special section. Much of the stuff on Napster are tracks that 
were ripped off commercially recorded CDs, or bootlegs recorded at 
shows where the artists are more protective of their music copyrights 
than the Dead, or downloaded from web sites that may or may not be 
copyright protected....

So the Dead model is more like what I have read described by Esther 
Dyson and John Barlow (Electronic Frontiers Foundation, and former 
lyricist for the Grateful Dead) as one of the new models for artists 
to still somehow make money off their work, even while much of it is 
available free -- the idea is that you give away recordings (via the 
Web, or whatever), to make the in-person performances more valuable. 
The Dead made all their money off performing, not recording. Kinda 
like open source software -- you give away the software and sell the 
in-person support for using it. And you also sell all the other 
associated junk -- T-shirts, books, posters, etc., and the Dead 
absolutely DID sue T-shirt vendors who duplicated their official, 
copyright graphics without permission.

None of the Dead's commercial recordings reproduced the live 
experience to either the band's or the fans' satifaction, so in 
essense (even though a record company exec would disagree, if there 
are any of 'em left, I used to be married to one so I can say 
that....) there was no product to buy, that the bootleg traded tapes 
were competing with.

The two things I keep thinking about are the old the British Library 
copyright model where authors get like a dime everytime their book is 
lent, I know we care about creators making a living, do we care about 
publishers making a living....yes, probably.....and as Jerry says 
above, how does this effect our ability as librarians to provide 
access to this content.

Debra.

dshapiro at slis.wisc.edu
Debra Shapiro
Continuing Education Services
UW-Madison SLIS
4282 Helen C. White Hall
Madison WI 53706
608 262 9195
FAX 608 263 4849