File-Sharing PC Software Shakes Up Music World
The latest technological threat to the music industry is a program called “Napster,” which is also the schoolyard nickname of the 19-year-old who created it.
The song-swapping software has spread among college students at such an astounding rate that the transfer of music files has clogged campus computer networks, prompting dozens of universities to ban Napster.
The program’s commercial potential is so evident that its creator, Shawn Fanning, was plucked from his college dorm room last year by investors who have placed him at the center of one of Silicon Valley’s most talked about start-ups.
Napster has overwhelmed almost everything in its path, demonstrating how swiftly a relatively simple piece of software can move from the desktop of a teenage programmer into an Internet phenomenon capable of threatening an entire industry.
Napster makes trading music files across the Internet so effortless that the recording industry considers it an unprecedented piracy threat and has filed suit to stop the fledgling company.
Fanning, who dropped out of Northeastern University in Boston last year to start Napster Inc., said he hasn’t had time to reflect. “But if I think about where all of this was six or seven months ago,” he said, “it’s just very overwhelming.”
The Internet empowers anyone with a good idea to have an instant impact, said Sujata Ramnarayan, a media analyst at GartnerGroup in San Jose. “To use Bill Gates’ words,” she said, “innovation now happens at the speed of thought.”
Trading music files across the Net became popular with the advent several years ago of MP3, a compression format used to convert music on CDs into reasonably sized computer files.
Napster’s appeal is that it makes trading music files remarkably simple. The software, available for free on the Napster Web site, enables users to share songs they have, to copy songs they want, and to search a gigantic database of music that grows every time a new user signs on. Company executives say there are already several million Napster users, even though it has been released only as a “Beta,” or test product.
Though most Internet users have never heard of Napster, it has spread swiftly on college campuses, where students generally have high-speed connections to the Net and increasingly view their PCs as entertainment appliances.
UC San Diego freshman Karen Jackson said she and her dorm mates have been avid fans of Napster since November. In her crowded room, plastered with posters of the bands Korn and Kid Rock, the 19-year-old biology student has connected large speakers to her PC. Several hundred songs, all saved in MP3 format, are stored and alphabetized on her hard drive.
On a recent afternoon, she launched Napster to search for some new tunes, “something acoustic and romantic for my boyfriend.” The program pulled up dozens of offerings from all over the world. She made copies of some Korn outtakes from a PC sitting inside the dorms at UC Irvine, 60 miles away.
“I really sort of hate computers,” Jackson said. “But I love music.” She said that “almost everyone” she knows uses Napster, mainly because it’s easy--and it’s free.
Previously, finding and downloading MP3 files involved using Web-based search engines whose listings were often woefully unreliable, and then trading music files using arcane File Transfer Protocol commands or by e-mail. Fanning said he came up with the idea for Napster after tiring of his former dorm mate’s complaints about downloading MP3s.
Armed with a programming guide from an uncle, Fanning created a prototype in a matter of weeks. It combined software for swapping files with a powerful search engine that updates continuously. The moment a user signs on, the songs he or she is willing to share are added to the giant index.
Fanning called his creation Napster because that was a nickname he’d gotten in junior high because of the “nappiness” of his curly hair.
Fanning’s uncle, then running a small computer game company in Boston, recognized Napster’s potential. He incorporated Napster Inc. on behalf of his nephew and began to shop the idea to East Coast investors. By summer, a fledging company was in place in San Mateo, Calif., and an early version of Napster was released on “shareware” Web sites.
Napster’s popularity among students has created problems for college administrators, who say the amount of data flowing across their campus networks has risen this year like raging flood waters.
Data Traffic Soars on Campus
At USC, data traffic has soared tenfold this year. Students surfing the Net no longer account for the bulk of the traffic. Rather, most of it is coming from thousands of outsiders grabbing songs from machines in USC dorms.
Fearing that their networks would eventually collapse, at least two dozen universities have banned the program.
Many students don’t understand the strain they are causing, said Mark Bruhn, technology policy officer at Indiana University, which barred the software just two weeks ago. Students often forget to shut down the program, he said, essentially leaving their machines accessible to thousands of other Napster users around the clock.
Data traffic has nose-dived since the ban was put in place, but blocking Napster has triggered a backlash among IU students.
“It’s censorship,” said Chad Paulson, a 19-year-old computer science major at IU. “They’ve blocked a whole media source. They’re just taking it away, not giving us any alternatives.
Paulson has even started a “Students Against University Censorship” Web site and an online petition drive aiming to force IU and other universities to repeal their Napster bans. He said he has collected about 1,500 signatures so far.
At USC, network director Phil Reese said his first instinct was to block Napster, but after a student outcry he opted instead to impose a “bandwidth restriction” that limits how much data students can send and receive per hour.
Napster executives, alarmed by the bans, are trying to devise a technical solution that would ease the load on campus networks. Meanwhile, the company is coping with a lawsuit filed by the Recording Industry Assn. of America.
Napster is “taking an active role in piracy,” said Hilary Rosen, president of the RIAA. “They help you catalog your files. They encourage you to distribute the files.”
And it’s true that many, if not most, of the 250,000 music files available on Napster at any moment are illegal copies of tracks by artists ranging from the Beatles to the Backstreet Boys.
Company Says It’s Merely a Conduit
But Napster executives insist that they are merely a conduit for sharing files, and can’t control users’ behavior. They also argue that Napster may actually boost CD sales by introducing consumers to new music. Legal experts say the RIAA will be hard-pressed to win its suit because not all MP3 files are illegal.
The turmoil illustrates technology’s ability to create instantaneous upheaval. Every media company now is grappling with Internet distribution of content beyond their control.
Napster also serves as an example of how new technologies and applications can come from almost anywhere, spreading virus-like across the Net without any marketing or distribution cost.
The suits and bans are merely part of Fanning’s frenzied new life. He said he spends the bulk of his waking hours writing code, rushing to finish a new version of Napster for its official launch next month. He said he usually arrives for work around 10:30 a.m., leaves around 1 a.m., then spends a few hours in a nearby gym buffing up his 5-foot, 9-inch, 215-pound frame.
Fanning said he comes from a blue-collar Cape Cod family and spent part of his youth in a foster home. He said his salary is under six figures.
Napster has no current source of revenue. But executives say they are exploring options ranging from advertising to selling music CDs. The company is also looking for a permanent chief executive, a job being held on an interim basis by Eileen Richardson, a Boston venture capitalist who was one of the first investors in the company.
Fanning said he misses his friends and family back East, but is focused on building the company, and seems confident that it will lead to riches.
“There are a few other companies now that are doing what we’re doing,” Fanning said. “But we have explosive growth. It’s going to be difficult to catch us. We have that buzz.”
