Isn't it amazing how quickly dreams can be crushed, how soon the brave new world can give way to the powerful old status quo of the traditional media. Napster, the poster-boy of the new way of doing things (at least in the eyes of most media outlets), decided that it didn't have a chance fighting the devil, so you may as well hop into bed and hope you gain the legitimacy of becoming Mrs. Devil. Instead they are more likely to become a case of "hey I'll give you a call".
Amongst all the debate about the long term business meaning, whether the millions of subscribers will pay the anticipated $4.99 monthly charge and if this means an about face by the music business, one little group are being forgotten. This group are the musicians who actually produce the music, and more importantly those tiny self-released musicians to whom "MP3" is a desperately needed way of bypassing the corporate stranglehold on music dissemination, not a dangerous threat to their livelihood.
These artists are the unseen and unheard victims in this whole carve-up. I really don't care if Dr. Dre or Metallica are losing money, or if The Offspring love Napster. These artists already have the privilege of major label backing and public recognition. Whilst the major record companies of the world make their individual deals with Napster, or start their own variation on a theme, the end-result will be an accidental but unavoidable closing of the door on the artists who most desperately need such services.
In simple terms Napster is going to change into a service in which the software will check all the MP3s within their network for authenticity. This is an incredibly lengthy and complicated process. The end result though will be 'watermarked' MP3s, an encryption system that will allow the software to judge if the music is from an album and artists that are located on a label that has an agreement with Napster. Apart from the huge amount of effort this creates, it also creates a massive set of problems.
Lets look at a series of scenarios. David Bowie's 'Diamond Dogs' is an officially licensed song, and can be accessed by any registered paying member of Napster. That seems simple, but lets say you have a copy on your hard drive that is several years old, more than likely the Napster software will be unable to recognize such a beast, therefore it can not be uploaded or downloaded. Perhaps you have a live version of this song from some obscure bootleg, or long since deleted limited edition release. Think that it will be recognized? Nope.
Then some small band in Slovakia create a song in dedication to Bowie called 'The Dogs were Diamond". They are truly awful and are on no label, they rip a MP3 of their own song. It will of course be unrecognizable to any software Napster can create. End result, you could not download it.
The Internet and its associated technology were supposed to be a leveling of the playing field. A process in which the guy with a keyboard and a computer in his parent’s basement in Moscow could with little money and a lot of imitative create enough publicity and interest to make a living or bring a major label contract in hand to his door. A large part of that whole concept was based around putting the music out onto as many places as possible, and Napster was a large part of that. To use our previous example people searching for "Diamond Dogs" may have stumbled upon our Slovakian friends and downloaded it for the hell of it.
With the 'Big Boys" easy win over Napster, true Indie music has taken a huge step backwards, and nobody has even realized it yet. Apart from the record companies themselves, believe me they have realized. Oh and don't think they are losing any sleep over it.

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