OH
NAPSTER, WHERE ART THOU?
by J. Freeman
Ok I know Napster is killing the recording industry. Sales are down because people are loading up on all the free music on Napster and not buying cds. We must stop Napster before there is no more recording industry goes the popular line in the media.
Slowly I turn...
The facts are that their "CD sales" are up this year, even over last year's stunning performance. The RIAA increased the average price of a full-length CD from $13.65 to $14.02, and still managed to sell 3,600,000 more of them.
Total profit increase on this, the core of their business, was 3.1%, or just shy of an extra $400,000,000. In fact, the RIAA's only real money-losing format of any significance was cassettes, which, along with music videos, were the only format actually cut in price. Cassette revenue dropped $436 million. Which by the way wasn't blank recording tape going to kill the record industry a decade or so ago?
In the digital formats which Napster can trade, they are making more money: $318,500,000 more revenue. In the analog and video formats where Napster is irrelevant, they are making less money: $579,500,000 less revenue.
That's the real story here...despite Napster and the release of some of the most awful artists / songs / cds in decades they are still making money.
If the record companies are so worried about sales figures they should worry about this...public libraries! Yes you can go to your local public library and take out music cds. Take them home to make perfect digital copies and you can copy the artwork too (something you can't do on Napster). All for free!! It's easier than Napster and you get cover art too. So support your profit bloated record company by alerting them to this threat to their bottom line. Between Napster and the public library their sales may only increase by 2% next year and we just can't have that.
Public Service Announcement...with guitars
Napster Alternatives - just in case you want to preview some cds before you buy them
Audiogalaxy Satellite- Audiogalaxy Satellite is a real-time transaction-based file-sharing system for MP3 users. This program uses a Web-based interface to let users search for artists, tracks, and albums and download the tracks onto their hard drives.
IMESH - iMesh is a search tool that lets you locate and download audio, image, and video files from the Web. The files you search for are located on the computers of other iMesh users. They have agreed to share their files with other people in the iMesh community
NAPIGATOR- Although Napster volunteered to block the trading of certain copyrighted files on its central servers, nothing has changed with the software itself. Feel free to use Napigator in conjunction with your Napster client to connect to OpenNap servers maintained by individuals.
WinMX -Is a FREE file-sharing program like no other. It allows you to simultaneously connect to many established networks based on the OpenNap and Napster protocols. This means MORE USERS and MORE SEARCH RESULTS than other sharing programs. WinMX also supports ANY FILE TYPE, allowing you access to a diverse assortment of shared VIDEO and PICTURE files as well as the usual MP3 AUDIO files.
Those should keep you busy and burnin' for the time being as we wait for the dust to settle at Napster.
And in the end
I always thought the real threat to the record companies from Napster was exposure. Exposure of the weak artists and songs that are being shoved down the publics throat by record companies and corporately controlled radio stations. But Britney, Backstreet and Destiny Child have proven that theory wrong! They also prove another theory wrong that Napster hurts record sales, because anytime of the day or night on Napster you can find their entire cd and yet they still keep selling millions of copies. Yes we must stop Napster before it's too late...too late for what I don't know.
For an alternative point of view check
out this article --
"Are Record Labels Greedy?"
By Miles Copeland
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