Napster’s Clients Need to Start Paying the Piper

I recently came up behind a 13-year-old girl sitting in front of a personal computer, looking at something on her screen that didn’t appear to be a video game or a home shopping Web site or e-mail.

“What you doing?” I asked.

She whirled around in her chair so quickly, I was worried that maybe I had caught her doing something that she didn’t want to be caught doing.

But I hadn’t.

“I’m loading my music,” she said.

Since my knowledge of computer technology is second only to my knowledge of the highest elevation of the Pidurutalagala mountain range in Sri Lanka (8,281 feet), I naturally knew exactly what to ask next.

“Loading your music?”

She whirled back toward the computer and clicked a mouse. Suddenly the room was filled with the enchanting sounds of Eminem, the rap artist, singing one of his tender ballads.

No CD player, no stereo, no tape, no phonograph album, no nothing. Just songs coming out of a computer.

“Cool,” I said, in yet another lame attempt to sound cool.

*

This was the first time I had ever heard of Napster, which for all I knew was a valley upstate where they grew grapes for wine.

Napster Inc. is a technology company created to provide music lovers with the means to love their music without ever having to leave the house and buy any.

In other words, it’s like owning your own jukebox, but not having to pay for any of the records inside it.

Let’s say you’re in your teens and you want to buy a CD by one of your favorite stars, like the Backstreet Boys or Beastie Boys or Barenaked Ladies or Britney Spears or Barenaked Boys or Backstreet Ladies or Beastie Spears--whatever. (I have a little trouble keeping them all straight.)

It can get pretty expensive going to Virgin or Tower or Rhino or Wherehouse or one of the other top music outlets in town and plunking down $15, $30, $60 at a time for the hottest new CDs. A 13-year-old girl today doesn’t need an allowance, she needs an American Express gold card.

Even for an old dude like me, who thinks Puff Daddy is a magic dragon, a visit to a music store can dent finances. Just a couple of days ago, I came home $100 lighter from shopping for some swinging new sounds, like that “Mob Hits” album of music from Mafia movies in which people who share my Italian heritage get whacked, plus Kathie Lee Gifford’s popular collection of Songs Your Parakeet Could Sing Better Than I Can.

Napster could have saved me big bucks.

All I needed to do was follow three easy steps, so easy a child could do it: (1) Find a child who could teach me how to use a computer; (2) Choose the artists whose music filled my soul with ecstasy, like Andrea Bocelli and Nancy Sinatra, then (3) Download every song they ever sang in their lives.

Cool.

It got me thinking of all the money I’d squandered in my youth, running to a record store to buy the latest albums by musicians whose work would never go out of style, like Chubby Checker or the Cowsills. What a waste it would have been to shell out 10 bucks on something unimportant like shoes, when I could spend it on something far more necessary, like a new album by the Turtles.

“Napster is for me,” I said.

But before I could load one single single into my private stash of tunes, I had to ask myself something. Namely, is this right? Isn’t this stealing? Doesn’t a record belong exclusively to its label? How can my favorite heavy-metal acts like Metallica or Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass make a living if paying customers like me are suddenly ripping them off for free?

I just couldn’t do it. This was bootlegging. It was unethical and unfair. Besides, I might get caught.

*

Well, sure enough, a federal judge Wednesday swung her ax and gave 40 whacks to Napster’s wax. “This monster,” as she called it, had improperly enabled PC users to load and trade copyrighted songs.

Napster’s officers were told to face the music and knock it off by midnight tonight. And to borrow a phrase from the Bard himself, Smoky Robinson, you could almost see the tracks of their tears.

That’s why a lot of 13-year-olds today are downloading as fast as they can, trying to beat that mean old judge’s deadline.

But that’s show biz, kids. Go out and pay for your music like your poor parents had to, before somebody tosses your song-stealing little butts in jail.

*

Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to: Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com