Napster Suit and Copyrights

* Just before I read Wayne Overbeck’s July 30 commentary about copyright, I was watching someone on a TV marketing channel pitching the fact that by buying a computer with CD-write ability, consumers can get expensive CDs at a fraction of their store-bought cost. So it’s both disappointing and astonishing that a professor of communications is unable to distinguish between the copying of copyrighted works between friends--as in the case of copying a videotape on a VCR--and the wholesale, random, free distribution of copyrighted material to tens of millions of strangers--as in the case of Napster.

Maybe current copyright lasts too long. Maybe the record companies are too powerful and selfish. But writers and musicians who depend on selling their work to make a living will not be helped by an attack on the copyright laws but rather by a consideration of how they can be protected from Napster, Gnutella--and the greed of a public literally flocking to get something for nothing.

FRANCIS MEGAHY

Beverly Hills

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I note that you can buy Overbeck’s book for $67.50. It doesn’t appear to be available for free on his Web site. Is the good professor “promoting the progress of science and the useful arts” by not sharing his copyrighted works for free? Or is he merely trying to protect his livelihood? Sharing without the permission of the creator of a copyrighted work is stealing, and that is what the Napster case is about.

MICHAEL J. HAYFORD

Monrovia

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Any one of the rich, aggressive multinational record labels that sued Napster could have--and should have--bought it. Their failure to perceive this opportunity will one day be legendary, sort of like Wrong Way Corrigan.

Napster has a subscriber base of more than 20 million music lovers. The advertising and marketing opportunities are simply sensational. A company that bought Napster could track music downloads and allocate advertising income accordingly: royalties to the artist, profit share to the label, plus a seven-figure fee for administration. What the record companies have done instead is alienate an estimated 22 million customers, many of whom are vowing retaliation. If only a few thousand of all those annoyed, tech-savvy kids are hackers, the labels had better look to their Web servers.

CHARLIE K. MITCHELL

Venice