Napster's Impact on Digital Media Consumption and Ownership

[00:00:00]A couple of videos ago I did a deep-dive into  online piracy, the history of it, how technology   over time has influenced its presence, etc. And  in that video I briefly talked about “Napster,”   arguably the first computer program to ever make  internet piracy a public, mainstream affair. It   allowed you to connect online to a huge database  and immediately download any song that you wanted,   instantly, for free. It is no wonder why it was  so huge at the time and why corporations hated   it. But as I continued thinking about  it, the more I realized that Napster,   due to its innovative design for the time, was  one of the pioneering programs that effectively   changed the way we currently consume media. And  in some respects, it even did it in a regressive   kind of way. Piracy has always been there, but  the motivations behind committing piracy have   not always been the same. In the 90s, programs  like Napster were a form of retaliation against   the expensive, rising prices of physical media,  things like tapes, CDs, and vinyl. And today,   we are facing the opposite problem. People  are resorting to piracy in a world full of   subscriptions and rentals, where the prospect  of permanently owning new physical media is   virtually non-existent. And now I’m starting to  think that Napster, was unknowingly, the problem.

[00:01:25]I know you saw me during my Gentlbands pitch.

[00:01:29]I thought you were hiding from someone.   You know, the difference between you and me is  that this isn't just a cash grab, all right?

[00:01:36]I like Gentle Bands. Your idea was just soulless. I thought it was more what they wanted.

[00:01:41]Well, as someone who actually  owns “the songwriter.” [60s SWING MUSIC] I can speak firsthand about its craftsmanship,  the packaging, the love that went into it.

[00:01:53]It's more than just a ring.  It has a guitar string in it,   tungsten koa wood. It's symbolic  of my profound love for music.

[00:02:03]I mean, I couldn't wear it in the  meeting. I had it on the chain, [MORE 60s SWING MUSIC] but it means something to me.  I mean, do you even know that   they're family-owned? Their workshops?  You're a football player in a suit,   unprepared. What was your idea  again? Something about Bob Dylan?

[00:02:21]Look, I don't like going in  with two ideas. It's weak.

[00:02:25]And you don't want to be  weak. So you picked yours.

[00:02:27]And they bought it, which is our goal, isn't it?

[00:02:30]You know, I got it engraved too. You  can do that for free, but of course,   you didn't mention that. I've got a million  good things to say about Gentlebands. A million.

[00:02:40]Good. I guess I'm lucky you worked for me.

[00:02:44]I feel bad for you.

[00:02:45]I don't think about you at all.

[00:02:59][ELEVATOR DINGS] Now, imagine it’s the 1990s. You’re driving in  your car and you hear a new song on the radio,   and you’re thinking “Oh wow! I like that  song! If only I could listen to it again.” So,   what do you do? Well, you have a few choices. You  could always record the song from the radio onto   a blank tape (the quality won’t be perfect, but  you’ll now have it for personal use to listen to   as many times as you want). But if you really  want the full, immersive experience, you could   always just make a trip to the music store and  buy that CD, and it is yours to keep, forever.   But physical music, especially vinyl, was  getting expensive in the 90s. An entire   album could be as much as $20. If the album  was terrible, you were out of luck. Yeah,   you could always rent these songs for much  cheaper, but why spend any of your hard earned   money at all on something that you just might  not like? What if there was a third option?   The ability to get high-quality music that’s  also free? Well, thankfully something called   the internet is garnering traction and quickly  popping up in households all around the world.   Now you can interact with people online who  not only share the same sentiments as you do,   but can actually do something about it. In 1998,  a user called “Napster” appeared in an online   chatroom proposing an idea for how people  could easily access computer files. What if   instead of relying on a centralized server from  a website to have the file you’re looking for,   you could just access a giant database of users  and download that specific file directly from   their hard drive. This was a concept known as  peer-to-peer file sharing, or P2P for short,   and aside from some experimental prototypes here  and there, it hadn’t really entered the mainstream   public eye. Most of the chat thought the whole  thing was ridiculous and laughed off the idea,   but one person: 18-year-old Sean Parker, thought  this vision had a lot of potential. The two had   already been online friends for a couple of years,  but Sean would eventually meet this “Napster” in   person, who was also named Shawn, Shawn Fanning  who was only 17 years old. The two became friends   and started working together on this project,  deciding that Napster was a fitting name for it.   They were able to raise $50,000 from investors to  get started on the concept, and worked countless   togethers putting it all together. Fanning was  reportedly sleeping in the utility cupboard at his   uncle’s office, because he spending so much time  on his computer programming. Then in June 1999,   Napster officially launched to the public. It only took less than a year for the community   to reach over 20 million people. The massive  success Napster had in such a short amount of time   was unprecedented, but in retrospect its really  not much of a surprise. Napster’s idea was both   revolutionary and came out at exactly the right  time. It took a relatively niche concept like P2P   file-sharing, and made it simple, only requiring  a couple of clicks from the user. It made the   navigation of desired content way easier as well.  Digitally downloading music before Napster was   not impossible, but a bit of a hail mary. You  effectively had to know where to look or connect   with the right people to help you out. Maybe  you know a guy on AOL Instant Messenger that   can send you the files. Sites that *did* host  the song you were looking for were, of course,   centralized, so it was much easier for copyright  enforcers to take them down, and therefore made   it even harder. Sites like AudioGalaxy had  file-sharing protocols similar to Napster,   but primarily focused on Indie artists; think of  a precursor to SoundCloud. But now with Napster,   that wasn’t a problem. This big database allowed  you to connect with anyone else on Napster, which   with millions of people, allowed for virtually  any song to be easily accessible for download, in   a decentralized approach. Because all it took was  someone taking one for the team and buying a CD,   ripping all the songs off of it, and then making  them available through Napster. So naturally,   the program’s intuitive design effectively  resolved these issues on a large scale.  But it also came at a great consequence. The  concept of copyright law on the internet was   by no means unheard of in 1999, but it was  obviously a lot less understood and enforced   due to the world wide web’s infancy. A centralized  website openly infringing copyright and hosting   unauthorized songs is quite easy to shut down.  But the thing is, Naspter wasn’t actually hosting   any of the content. They were basically just  a referral list that connected you to people   that already had the content in question. And  what are you gonna do, march over to someone’s   house and force them to delete that song off their  hard drive? Not to mention that, not everything   accessible through Napster was copyrighted either.  Many of these songs were public domain or even   granted permission for download by the artists  themselves. So, it wasn’t all bad. This created   a very gray area for the legality of Napster,  and because it was such a unique situation,   copyright enforcers weren’t exactly sure what to  do. This allowed the program to just continue to   grow exponentially as the months went by, and by  the year 2000, they were even extending to other   platforms. A macintosh version of Napster, known  as “Macster” would be released that same year.   But then a little band called “Metallica”  enters the picture. A demo version of one   of their songs ended up getting leaked onto the  platform, and ended up even playing on the radio,   all without their permission. Needless to say,  the band was furious and wanted some kind of   restitution. This frustration among the record  labels and artists just compounded, and so,   Metallica, Dr. Dre, and the Recording Industry  Association of America sued Napster for violating   the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998,  particularly in regards to “safe harbor” laws.  Now this is when the discussion of copyright  gets very nuanced, because when you are dealing   with something as huge as the internet, let’s be  honest, a lot of things that happen on there are   beyond your control. The DMCA took this into  account. For example, if someone uploads an   entire movie to YouTube, the company YouTube,  is off the hook. Instead, the YouTube account   that uploaded the video would be punished. Safe  harbor laws do not punish the website hosting the   copyrighted content, but rather the provider or  distributor of the said content. Having said that,   you also need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt  that the website has good intentions. The primary   purpose of YouTube is that it is a video sharing  site, which users can upload their own personal   creations for the world to see, but with millions  of people uploading to it everyday, copyrighted   is bound to slip through the cracks, and DMCA  allows YouTube to crack down on it to the best   of its ability. But the primary goal of Napster?  Let’s be honest, it was specifically for accessing   copyrighted music for free. Yeah, technically it  could be used legally, but the vast, vast majority   of people were not using it for that purpose. And  *this* was the argument used against Napster in   the courts. Napster was not only violating their  duty of care in abiding to safe harbor laws,   but they were actively playing a role and  facilitating the ability for users to commit   copyright infringement. The company was even aware  that their program was being used for this reason,   and didn’t take any action to stop it. The  court ultimately ruled in favor of the artists   and record companies and Napster was ordered  to remove access to all copyrighted songs on   their platform. Considering this was what 99%  of people used their program for, Napster took   a huge hit. Their services were temporarily shut  down so that the company could take time to find   a workaround. This plan failed, however, and  so Napster shut down entirely in July 2001.  There was finally a solution to the “buying music”  problem…until there wasn’t, and people were quick   to blame Metallica and the other artists that were  involved for “ruining all the fun.” In fact, even   other renowned musicians criticized them for it,  particularly Foo Fighters. They felt that these   bands had enough money already, and that people  downloading songs here and there really wasn’t   that big of a deal. But despite the controversies  and the death of this beloved program, it was   clear that Napster sparked the beginning of a new  era. Physical media was now passé, and MP3s were   the future. What if there was a way to create  a DMCA-friendly version of Napster? In 2001,   just months before Napster’s demise, Apple  releases a program called iTunes. It’s entire   objective was to keep the convenience of Napster  while also fairly compensating the artists and,   most importantly, solving the “album” problem of  the 90s. Instead of spending $20 on an album that   you might not even like, why not spend just $0.99  on individual songs that you already know that you   like? It was the perfect compromise between the  record labels and the consumers, and it’s actually   quite amazing that these record labels would  agree to settle on something that looks so small,   but when you really look at what Napster  did, it all starts to make sense. Napster   didn’t just find a genius way to give everyone  access to free music, but literally changed the   industry. Downloading music off the internet was  now the future, and physical media sales were at   a decline. And honestly, anything would be better  for the companies than people stealing. Apple was   able to convince these labels that a “per-song”  purchasing model would reverse falling profits,   and sure enough, it did. And with the release  of the iPod in October of that same year,   this rebirth in music would dominate the whole  decade. Applications like Pandora, Spotify, and   even Napster once again, would pop up as online  music services. With just a monthly subscription,   you can get access to millions of songs online or  even through your phone if you download the app.  Programs like LimeWire would learn from  the mistakes Napster made and more or   less operate as a satisfactory, more advanced  replacement. I’ve gone more into detail about   the specifics of this in my video on piracy if  you would like to check that out, but in short,   it was easy to shut down Napster because they  had the music database baked into the program,   meaning in reality, it was actually a lot more  centralized than it appeared. LimeWire, however,   only provided the downloading tools. It was  up to the user to find their own database   of files online. Now the story of LimeWire  deserves to be its own video, but in short,   this allowed for them, and the many other pirating  programs that took similar approaches, to exist a   lot longer than Napster. And the advancement of  technology and protocols like BitTorrent would   make it possible to download things other than  music, like movies, video games, or even entire   programs. And much like with Napster, this would  show the entertainment industry that *these* forms   of entertainment were also migrating to the online  space. So, they created streaming services! And   these services were so affordable, many people  actually found it more convenient than pirating,   much like what iTunes did with music. But what happens when things get too   convenient? Streaming became so commonplace  in the world, they were more or less the only   viable option left. During their experimental  phases, streaming services were trying to lure   people in by giving them attractive prices.  But once streaming became the standard, these   companies could now really test the elasticity of  their product. Yeah, we raised our prices. What   are you gonna do? Go somewhere else? You can’t!  Which brings us to now. In the current market,   at least the corporate market, physical media like  DVDs, CDs, are more scarce than they’ve ever been,   especially with video entertainment. Really your  only bet right now is to buy them secondhand.   And this creates the unintended consequence of  movies just disappearing entirely. Because of   certain contracts and licensing agreements, a lot  of movies hop from one service to another, or even   just disappear entirely, and because there are  next to no new DVD prints being made. The only way   that you CAN obtain them is through piracy, but  obviously that’s illegal, so they effectively just   become lost media. This was an issue that simply  didn’t exist during the height of physical media.   Yet we’re paying more for it. What started as a  product specifically designed to give us more,   is now giving us less, and we don’t even own it. And when you really think about it, the common   ancestor to all of this *is* Napster. Now it’s  not Napster’s “fault,” there were many moving   parts to this problem, but it certainly was a  cog in the machine, even if its contributions   were indirect. By revolutionizing the industry,  Napster effectively taught the world that this   was a new medium of accessing information that  could be capitalized, and it didn’t have to be   hard to use either! All of Napster’s progression,  in the long-term, even created some regression,   both within the streaming industry, and in the  form of a new movement that is slowly growing   outside of it. Physical media has been slowly  making a comeback. We’ve been seeing it with vinyl   for years now, but now its reaching other forms  of entertainment too. In dozens of neighborhoods   across the United States, “free blockbuster” bins  are popping up. People are buying old mailboxes,   spray-painting them blue, and filling them with  old DVDs, even video games, and anyone in the   neighborhood is welcomed to grab one, free of  charge, just as long as they put another DVD in   the bin. Imagine having a mini library, but you  don’t need a library card to check anything out.   Nostalgia is certainly a component to this  as well, but the main driving force really   is that people just miss owning things. When does the subscription model become   the inconvenient option? Well, when it’s the only  option left. People want to have a say in things,   and that was what made Napster such an attractive  platform, and its rise and fall really just is   history repeating itself. Rock and Roll gave  power to the people, until that power was taken   advantage of. Napster took that power back in  a whole new way, until that whole new way was   taken advantage of. It is the counterculture  becoming the status quo. And perhaps the   world right now is at that stage, where they  are going to retransform it all once again.

[00:17:09]You know what else will fix  it? Supporting me on patreon,   of course! Patreon.com/NationSquid. You can also  Buy Me a Coffee. All for Napster. Let’s do it.  A special thanks to my patrons and channel  members for making this video possible.   Thank you so much for watching. If you  enjoyed this video, please subscribe,   and click the notification bell, so  that you never miss a future video!