The uproar over Napster - the internet service which enables users around the world to exchange copyrighted music from their computers with each other through a central directory - is a modern morality tale.
A US federal judge has granted an injunction to prevent the company from copying and distributing music. It will not work. It is the modern equivalent of putting a digit into the dyke to prevent the dam (in this case containing trillions of 1s and 0s rather than water) from bursting. It will not work because there are already other so-called "peer to peer" alternatives (like Gnutella, FreeNet and many more in the pipeline) which cannot be brought to court since, unlike Napster, they have no central place where the music files are collated.
This case has no heroes. The record companies that brought the case have been making too much money out of their music rights and do not seem to realise that it cannot be maintained in the "free-for-everyone" ethos of the internet.
Napster, the brilliant creation of a couple of entrepreneurial students, tries to pretend it is upholding the mutual principles of the internet by facilitating the free exchange of music files from one hard disk to another. It is doing nothing of the sort, since (unlike the alternatives) it has formed itself into a company to make money out of it.
We are witnessing here the latest confrontation between the founding centrifugal forces of the internet (pushing information downward and outward at no cost to users) and the centripetal forces as corporations and governments try to recapture the centre (where the profits and power reside).
The power to digitise everything from books to Hollywood films could lead to all of these being freely exchangeable on the web just as share prices and news are now. That could happen unless film and music makers get a grip on what is happening and cooperate to produce a solution recognising the deflationary forces of the web. That means making recordings available on the web at prices reflecting the fact that distribution is free and that it costs no more to make a million copies than it does to make one. Consumers should pay something to reflect the intellectual property rights of what they are buying - especially if quality is guaranteed - but they will not be duped into paying monopoly prices.
If the record companies do not accept that, they will contribute to their own destruction. And it will not be a long-playing record.
