Napster
First published 10/5/2000

Let's talk about Napster. Is it a high-tech Pandora's box, a catalyst for the radical restructuring of the corrupt music industry? Or is it just a cheap way to rip off artists? Or, is it a way to try to rip off artists but it takes forever for the song to download and then your computer crashes halfway through and you have to reboot and then you can't find the song anymore and then you realize, wait a minute, don't I already own that album?

These are the questions the pundits are asking. Will the American legal system shut down Napster or vindicate it? Perhaps it doesn't matter. Because the real issue isn't music. It's T-shirts. I mean, like, a CD is twenty bucks. But a concert T-shirt costs, like, thirty bucks. Thirty bucks! For a T-shirt!

I mean, it's not Kevlar. It's not going to save your life. You just want to look cool and show everybody you went to the concert. You're never going to wear it again except when you run out of clean clothes. Why can't those eggheads figure a way for us to download T-shirts off the Internet? That would send a message to The Man.

Besides, the music business isn't the only industry due for a little dose of digital justice. Why can't some new Internet-based service come along and reform the fast food industry? I mean, answer me this: is it fair that McDonald's executives waltz off with all the money while the guy who plays Grimace can barely make ends meet? Huh?

And what if Grimace wants a concert T-shirt? Sorry, Grimace, they don't come in your size. What can he do? Not much, in that suit. He doesn't have the mobility of, say, a Hamburgler or one of those talking McNuggets.

(Not that Grimace would necessarily lose to Hamburgler in a fair fight. Grimace may be slow, but he's big. Mind you, Hamburgler looks mean. He's an ex-con, apparently -- although how tough can that prison be if they let you wear a tie and big floppy hat? And what's with the mask? Does Hamburgler think he's anonymous in that thing? It makes you wonder. On the other hand, we don't even know what Grimace is. Animal, vegetable, or mineral? My guess is he's a big kidney. Can a big kidney fight? Hard to say.)

Here's a final thought. If Napster gets shut down I think the CBC should jump in with a replacement service. Here's how it would work. You'd type a search phrase (say, "N*Sync") into CBC Napster. Your request would be sent to Toronto, where Rex Murphy sits alone in a little room. Rex Murphy would read your request off a tiny screen and record a pithy commentary on it. ("Is Stockwell Day N*Sync with mainstream Canadians?") This commentary would be encoded into mp3 format and sent back to your computer, in 4 to 28 weeks, once all the paperwork went through.

With so many factors to consider -- copyright law, intellectual property, Grimace -- sorting out this Napster mess could be a tough job. I sure wouldn't want to be that judge right now! Mostly because I'd be nervous that someone would find out I'm not even a lawyer.

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