Taking Stock of the Internet, Napster Ruling

* Feb. 12 was indeed a red-letter day in the future of the Internet. Whereas the Internet began as a completely free and open communications tool for military and education institutions and then morphed into a powerful communications tool for everyone, it has now entered a depressing “third phase.”

This third phase [“Appeals Court Issues Ruling Against Napster,” Feb. 13] allows for the complete capitalization of the Internet by the business sector. Say goodbye to the “mom-and-pop” Web sites so evocative of the Internet’s democratic potential and hello to faceless company Web sites with their pop-up ads and their automated e-mailing.

In essence, the ruling lays the groundwork for the Internet to be owned by corporations, not by the society and individuals who built it. That is worthy of great concern.

TOM KAGEFF

Los Angeles

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* “Napster Offers Record Labels $1-Billion Deal” [Feb. 21] says the Napster fee-based model assumes that charging the fee (of $3 to $10 per month) will result in the loss of 98% of the 64 million members.

That surprises me. As a Napster member, I would love to have a way of paying for the service that compensates artists and others who make the music possible, so they can go on doing it. Surely $3 to $10 is nominal enough that most members will be able to afford it.

We are not talking about really poor people here. We are talking about people with computers and Internet service, many with broadband connections--not to mention many who have substantial CD collections.

Assuming the court rulings will ban other services as well and thus cause a lack of free alternatives to Napster, I find it baffling that a 98% loss of membership due to a small fee charge is projected. Most other Napster members I talk to say they are happy to pay a fee, and all are in love with the Napster service.

What are people going to prefer? Does the model assume they would rather pay $17 apiece for CDs to get a song they like, and a bunch of other songs they don’t know whether they will like, than to pay $10 a month for unlimited access to any song they want? I don’t understand the logic of assuming most members will abandon Napster if it charges such a fee.

JUDY ANDERSON

WEINTRAUB

Santa Monica

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* When Dave Wilson [“Anti-Piracy Laws Rob Consumers of Rights,” Tech Times, Feb. 22] frowns heavily on protection of corporate copyright holders, he forgets the artists who also hold those copyrights, whose livelihood comes from royalties on those recordings being pirated by Napster and the consumers who access and copy them.

With the exception of a few musical artists who are superstars, large recording corporations are the only ones that have the kind of deep pockets to have pursued this lawsuit. Ultimately the interests of those who composed and performed the music have been trampled by Napster and the equally guilty people who want their work “for free.”

Copying copyright music without paying its producer, and the artist who created it, is theft. Napster is like a locksmith who goes door-to-door at businesses after closing time, unlocking the doors and then driving up and down the streets with a bullhorn inviting looters inside. Those who use Napster have been looting, and Napster has done the breaking and entering.

Just because locksmith technology exists does not mean we as a society should tolerate its use for unlawful purposes. The recording industry and popular music will die if there is no longer any financial incentive to either record or create the music.

KAYE KLEM

Mission Viejo

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* While the new Napster killer technologies are solving a big problem for those whose intellectual property is being stolen [“New Technologies Target Swapping of Bootlegged Files,” Feb. 20], they are unfortunately solving a problem for somebody else: the government of Communist China and any other despots looking for a way to control the threat to their regimes posed by the Internet.

The same technology that hunts down stolen songs computer by computer can easily be adapted to hunt down forbidden ideas.

ROBERT CHANDLER

Beverly Hills

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