CYBERPUNK: Peer Pressure Spurs 'Net Revolution

On February 12, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court decision upheld a previous ruling that Napster does indeed violate copyright law. And while this was the decision that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) had been waiting for -- it provides the legal tools to stop the free swapping of music that stems from that service -- it hardly means the end to the problem of file-swapping itself. In fact, one of the many things that have been said and written about Napster is that it's really just a hint of something much larger, something -- here we go with that word again -- revolutionary.

And I agree. Why? File-sharing services such as Napster threaten, in a major way, to shift control of entertainment and information away from centralized sources -- say, your favorite multinational corporation -- and back towards people, who can (and always have) shared such things among themselves. That sounds vague, I know, but its difficult to convey how deeply subversive something like Napster really is.

This I learned, I think, as a result of getting a cable modem.

A cable modem, you see, is on all the time. There's something about having a dedicated line that slowly shifted my perspective on what the Internet was all about. These days, I keep one computer online 24/7, not only to have round-the-clock e-mail and instant weather information when I'm home, but to access my files when I'm out. When I'm at work, I can just download any MP3s I fancy to hear, or grab notes I've left behind, or fetch anything I want someone else to read/see/hear. And I have begun to realize that computers make accessibility and transferability of information easier than even I, Mr. Tech Columnist, thought possible. Much easier.

What makes this level of accessibility more than a mere convenience -- what makes it outright radical -- is the advent of file-indexing services like Napster. Napster is the first successful example of what the buzzworders like to call peer-to-peer networking, or P2P for short. As you may know, Napster doesn't actually have copies of the songs people download; its servers merely index the MP3s on its participants' own hard drives and allows them to search through each other's collections.

This ability to index and share, of course, isn't limited to music. Anything that can be represented in digital from, from pornography to software, can be traded or used in like fashion. P2P will allow you to have your own personal library, open for anyone to enjoy. And why not? Sharing won't cost you anything, and, unlike the real-life loan of, say, a book, it won't deprive you of the work should you want to return to it. The potential result is a collection of widely available material to dwarf that of any library or entertainment network.

The Web itself carried with it the promise of that kind of deep library, but for various reasons the originators of content haven't been the most vigilant about keeping it in the public sphere. As Nelson Minar and Marc Hedlund point out in an essay in the anthology Peer-to-Peer: Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies, P2P allows anyone to become a publisher, even if you're not the author of what you publish. A music label spending millions of dollars to set up its own site where one could download product would simply be redundant. And, with the middlemen cut out of the distribution cycle, how long would it take for their influence to be eliminated from the cultural loop altogether? Indeed, underground hits are already happening without any record-company help -- like that "Hat Song" flash video everyone has been e-mailing about lately.

Of course, as with any utopian fantasy, there are huge problems in applying this notion in the real world. The chief one here is the one that the music industry is fighting Napster over: How do people get compensated for creating stuff? With everyone out there freely swapping around bits, how will the artists and writers and programmers who originated those bits get paid for their efforts?