On Wednesday, March 14, 2001, Napster updated their filters in accordance with a court order, an action that blocked 135,000 copyrighted songs from being downloaded from their network. This latest move has downloaders frustrated. They have the technology. Why can't they use it?

The simple answer, of course, is that the songwriters, musicians, and producers want money for their work. Both sides seem to have valid points, so how can we solve this problem?

We suggest that the music industry accept the membership plan for users. In other words, downloaders would subscribe to Napster's service and pay a monthly fee. So far, the industry has rejected this offer. They don't believe Napster is charging enough to make up for the profit loss from conventional music sales.

Thus we suggest a twofold line of action from Napster as they seek this settlement with the industry: increase the amount charged and adopt a tiered membership system. In other words, the plans could come in several different price ranges to accommodate all income levels. For example, a thirty dollar monthly payment would allow for the download of ten songs that month, a sixty dollar monthly payment for twenty, and so on.

Napster could then give the money to the recording industry as any retail store might do. At the same time, they could keep prices reasonably low, at least below current CD costs, because their own profit can come from advertising on the site and online trading cuts out expensive middlemen, overhead, packaging costs, and shipping costs.

Forcing Napster to filter songs doesn't solve the problem of free downloads anyway. As soon as one service is slowed or shut down, three other sites rise up to take over the customer base, so the current court order cannot satisfy the music industry for long.

Law enforcement, you will have to increase your efforts to block free trading on the web, or as we mentioned earlier, new (free) sites will simply undermine this solution. Might we suggest federal legislation requiring these tiered payment plans as a healthy remedy.

So listen up, recording industry, don't reject this new technology. Hank Barry, CEO of Napster, is trying to compromise and so should you. In a statement on the Napster site, Barry stated, "We will continue to seek a settlement with the record companies and to propose our new membership-based service that will make payments to artists, songwriters, and other rights holders."

Embrace the technology. Compromise. In the immortal words of Spike Lee and Dr. Laura (I bet you never thought you'd see those two in the same sentence)…"Go do the right thing."

Stop fanning this fire of controversy.

Yes, pun intended.

March 2001