CNN.com - Napster idea won't die, even if Napster does
Isabella Ramos
Published Apr 11, 2026
| Napster and Gnutella clones that will take its place | |
By Peter Marks
CNN.com writer
The ruling by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Napster knew its users were violating copyright laws and therefore it should stop "facilitating" them will have little long term effect on sharing of music on the internet.
Napster is a software program that allows users to connect to a Napster server for the purpose of making contact with other users. Once in contact with other users a peer to peer protocol is used to exchange music files.
It's the central server that has both made Napster liable for their user's copyright transgressions, and also vulnerable to being shut down. Savvy software developers at Nullsoft (authors of the popular WinAmp MP3 player) recognized this flaw and in March 2000, released a program called Gnutella.
The early version of Gnutella was flawed but it demonstrated a pure peer to peer protocol that was quickly reverse engineered by other developers who created programs such as BearShare, Gnotella, and LimeWire.
The combined emergence of compact MP3 music compression, widespread broadband internet access, and low cost portable MP3 players has made the sharing of music via the internet very popular. Napster estimates that they have 50 million users.
Music sharing not new
Since the availability of low cost compact cassettes in the 1960s, consumers have routinely made copies of their records and exchanged them with friends. Most users see this as a fair thing to do and are unaware that technically they are in breach of the artist's copyright.
Times have changed, low quality tapes of vinyl records have been replaced with high quality digital copies of compact disks, and an encoded music track can be quickly distributed to large numbers of others.
The large difference between the price charged by the music industry for a CD and the tiny cost of downloading just the desired track over the internet has driven music lovers to bypass traditional music distribution in favor of the 'instant gratification' of Napster, Gnutella and others.
How should artists be paid?
Napster has signed deals with record companies Bertelsman and Edel Music, the plan was to charge users a small membership fee which would be passed on to the artists. Some artists, such as the Dave Matthews band and many unsigned artists have seen free distribution as a way to promote conventional record sales.
Gnutella developer Gene Kan says "I feel that the recording industry has been slow to respond to the changes the Internet has wrought, and that is what impacts artists the most. The recording labels own the rights to the music yet are not aggressively translating those rights into meaningful commodities in the Digital Age."
Peer to peer music sharing won't end with the demise of Napster. Music distribution in digital form fits the internet perfectly and will only accelerate as new players, such as those built into mobile phones, become popular. What is needed is for the record industry to start selling tracks directly for a small fee per download.
Could Gnutella be shut down? "Napster has a roomful of server standing by, waiting to help you download the latest Britney Spears. Gnutella, by comparison, doesn't exist at all without its users."
There will always be "sharing" of copyright material, but if the practices of the average consumer are out of step with the law, the law must change.
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RELATED SITES:
Napster home page
Gnutella home page
Other Gnutella clientsNote: Pages will open in a new browser window
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