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DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED: One Man's Napster Timeline by Bob Lefsetz 1998 MP3s start to appear on my personal radar screen. I don't pay too much attention; after all, who would even want this music? Even if it IS free! Figured MP3s sounded shitty. And this was just another college prank/activity. Something that wasn't mainstream. December 15, 1998 Hilary Rosen, president/CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, gives her famous "Peace Is at Hand" speech, and I figure that's the end of it. Oh, you don't remember "Peace Is at Hand"? That's how Nixon won the 1972 election. About a week before election day, it was announced that negotiations had come to fruition. There was going to be a settlement of the Vietnam conflict imminently. Nixon won the election; the U.S. kept fighting. Not evacuating from Vietnam until two-and-a-half years later, in the spring of 1975. Hilary announces SDMI. The Secure Digital Music Initiative. The man who INVENTED MP3 is chairing the committee. This is before the dot-com crash. It is commonly believed that technology was unstoppable. That WIZARDS live in Silicon Valley. There is no doubt in our minds that they'd nail the protocol, and that would be it. Actually, results are promised in time for the Christmas sales season. They still haven't arrived. December 9, 1999 As the sun sets, I arrive at the St. Regis Hotel in Aspen, Colo., for the annual Aspen Artist Development Conference. The conference is being sponsored by RioPort. Every attendee receives a free Rio 500 MP3 player. United Airlines had lost my luggage, so I end up hanging at the registration desk, having nothing better to do. Rob Bordan asks me if I've listened to my Rio yet. His voice rises, his stare is intense, he tells me it's FANTASTIC! I remove my Rio from its bag and it falls on the floor. I figure I've broken it. I put it back in its bag and tell Rob I'll listen to it later. In my room, alone, I push "play" on the Rio and it fires right up. No damage had been done. The device is loaded with classic convention material. Totally unmemorable music recorded very professionally. But the sound. I am stunned. I suddenly realize that all the hype in the straight press was wrong. MP3s sound GREAT! This Rio sounds better than any Walkman I'd ever owned. December 10, 1999 Jim Griffin speaks at the AADC. The year before, everybody was blown away. But this year, people don't buy it. The year before the crowd was not technologically savvy. But in the ensuing 12 months, they'd learned a lot. Jim's theories were interesting, but was streaming really imminent? And did all this tech stuff affect the way records were traditionally broken? The way careers were traditionally developed? Jim doesn't have good answers to these questions. But he keeps throwing one word in the attendees' collective face. "Napster." He asks how many people have heard of Napster. Almost no one has. Including me. Jim says it was all over. That Napster can't be beaten. The record companies are in big trouble. I tell Jim Napster is illegal. Jim says it is legal. Not wanting to get into a pissing contest, I don't pursue it. But being an attorney, I know there is no way in hell Napster as it is currently functioning was legal. After Jim's speech, I speak with Karen Allen of the RIAA. She says the RIAA is suing Napster. I figure that is the end of it. January 2000 In a matter of weeks, all hell breaks loose. Attributable to one thing and one thing only. College break. Students go home for vacation and hear from all their friends about this amazing service where you could get music for free. They go back to college and check it out. It is classic word-of-mouth. Colleges start to flip out. Their networks are being brought to a crawl. They ban Napster. Napster rewrites the software to circumvent this problem. The ban is lifted. March 7, 2000 The New York Times does a story on the Napster phenomenon. It appears on the front page. So, at this point, college students are rabidly using Napster. High school students might have heard of it, but aren't using it. For without a high-speed connection, it just isn't worth it. The people in the music business are completely oblivious. At this point they'd heard of Napster, but they figure it is somebody ELSE'S problem. They have to do their jobs. Sign acts, get them on the radio. They don't have time to get their heads out of the day to day to think of the bigger issues. And after all, that's why there is the RIAA, right? They are going to take care of this, right? |
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