NAPSTER: GETTING WITH THE PROGRAM

Napster is the notorious website that allows members who sign up and download a simple file transferring program to "share" music over the internet. The Napster software is incredibly simple to use and available to both PC and Mac users. Once you have downloaded and installed the program, you can register at the Napster site. Then, you can either download the well-hyped popular songs they have featured on their main page or use their search engine to find some actual music. Type in an artist's name and/or song title and you get a list of members who have this song as an MP3 file on their harddrives. Then you simply connect directly with these members' computers and download the songs for free.

This concept of online sharing has embroiled Napster - and sometimes its users - in a mess of legal troubles. Many artists - and most major labels - consider it nothing less than stealing. On the other hand, many indie artists - including a lot of other folk musicians I know - see Napster as a great equalizer. It's a way of getting music heard, especially among younger audiences. And several months ago, controversial rocker Courtney Love published an extremely well-argued article at Salon.com claiming that the record companies themselves steal from artists much more than Napster users ever could.

After working on-line regularly for a year and a half using a 56K modem, I never downloaded songs from the internet - it just takes too long. A typical 3-5 Megabyte MP3 file takes 10-25 minutes to download. But this week I got a cable modem, with download speeds of up to 500K and in a few short minutes found myself staring at Napster's search box and asking myself:

"So, of all the music in the whole wide world, what songs would you like to have?"

Suddenly, I had no idea. A kind of vertigo overtakes you the first time you log on. Where to start? Instead of having 100 ideas, 1000 ideas, I had none. I was just dumbfounded.

When using Napster, you need to have a plan and you need to ask yourself how you are going to use this incredible tool and how you will justify it. I know teenagers who have downloaded hundreds of popular songs and burned them onto CDs to keep permanently. Sometimes, they even design their own cover art for their collections. For me, I can't see downloading songs for entertainment, whole albums worth of songs I'd otherwise buy.

It seems to me there are at least four legitimate ways of using Napster:

1. Out of Print Music. If an album is out of print, there's no harm in sharing the songs on it. I was able to download a few old recordings of the French neo-traditional group Malicorne and several proto-rapping spoken word tracks by Lord Buckley, including "The Nazz," the 9-minute jazzed-up hepped-up wigged-out story of the groovin' cat from Nazareth. I've searched for both of these for a long time. With Napster, I was listening to these classic recordings in minutes.

2. Learning to Play/Sing. If the main purpose is not to keep the track indefinitely but to use the track and then eventually discard it, this seems like a legitimate, library-like use of Napster. I have always wanted to learn Martin Carthy's version of "Fairest Flower of Serving Men" though I was not necessarily interested in buying the CD for casual listening. Now I can study the lyric and guitar part.

3. Research and Teaching. I'm doing a songwriting residency in two 6th grade classes in Hartford and Farmington that are studying Hispanic migration. So I looked for "Guantanamera" - and found three versions including the recent hip-hop version by Wyclef Jean. I also looked up "De Colores" - a workers' anthem I noticed in "Rise Up Singing," but had never heard. Now I can teach songs like these and discard the tracks later.

4. To sample new and unfamiliar music. When I was teaching songwriting to high school students last year, I was impressed by the range of music they were downloading from Napster. They were omnivorous in a way that's not reflected by any radio station - even great ones like KGNU in Boulder with its free form programming. My students did not distinguish between top 40 and Robert Johnson, Madonna and Leonard Cohen. If it was good, they were listening. They got tips by word of mouth, by following online discussion lists, by reading interviews. Napster lets you live with this new music, gives you a chance to really listen. It lets you go ahead and buy music beyond the few baubles that the record companies dangle in front of you.

Final word: respect the artists, the producers and musicians, and the people who have invested in keeping the music in print exactly to the extent that they respect you. No more and no less. If they are making fluff to manipulate and extort money from young people, steal it without a backwards glance. They're trying to steal your soul - seems like an even trade. If they are making music that attempts to make a difference, then every dollar makes a difference too. Even if the artist is dead, the indie label, the talented producers and engineers, all have a stake in the project. By all means, download this music too and listen. Then, if you find yourself grateful for the way that the artists have treated you, return the favor: buy the album, go to the concert, support their work.

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