By The Pariah

I moderated a panel about Jazz and the Net at the Billboard Jazz Conference back in June and Herbie Hancock was one of the panelists. Napster was all over the media and the number one topic of discussion at any music gathering. Mr. Hancock was rather vehement in his opposition to Napster, suggesting that if such entity were allowed to continue to exist, that it would put an end to anyone wanting to play music. Obviously, he was concerned about the royalty issue, instead of realizing just what Napster represents. At that point, I’d just heard about Napster. The next day, my sixteen-year old daughter showed me how to use it. Within five minutes I was downloading music. At first it was novelty, getting all these tracks that I’d never heard but wanted to. Then it became a sort of addiction.

For the first time in my life, I could listen to anything, from Zoot Sims to D’Angelo. Maybe not the exact track, but usually, something from the recording in question. Instead of hoping I’d hear the music on the radio, or going to a website for a thirty second sound sample which was basically useless, I could actually hear the music in its entirety, on demand.

Napster’s disassembly of the recorded-music business as we have known it—and its reconstruction according to the rules of the Digital Age—is a profound and permanent change for the better.

But ten years from now, history won’t report that Napster’s biggest accomplishment was the restructuring of the CD business.

The real story is the public’s entry into the power of a previously little-known and less-understood phenomenon--peer-to-peer computing, or P2P.

When the legal dust settles and the innovative Napster nipsters make the necessary agreements so that artists are fairly compensated for the downloading of their creations, the empowered era of peer to peer marketing will officially commence. (I'm certain just about anyone who uses Napster for free today, will play $4.95 a month tomorrow for the service, and the income generated, perhaps five hundred million dollars a year, will go into a fund that will pay royalties.)

Thus far, the focus has been fear. Not surprisingly, the digital music revolution, which will transform the way Jazz is marketing and distributed, has been largely met by fear and confusion by anyone who feels threatened by the ability of users to share music in a way never before possible. “Our music is being stolen,” cry the artists, “We’re losing our control over the dissemination of the music,” cry the record labels.

The RIAA is unalterably convinced that the easy availability of freely downloadable commercial songs will bring on the apocalypse, and yet, during the two years since MP3 music began flooding the Net, CD sales have risen by 20 percent!

From a listeners perspective, the present system, where consumers pay $15 for a CD on which they may only listen to one or two selections, and the inability to actually hear the music, given the scarcity of Jazz radio stations, finds listeners anxious to hear the music, but reluctant to actually buy the “product,” without testing it first.

Along comes Napster, or, more to the point, along came the real Internet, an instantaneous network that endows anyone with PC with a distributive power equal to Time Warner's.

The power of global, peer-to-peer networking, i.e., the ability to easily share audio files of complete tracks, could have a remarkably dramatic effect on the current status of Jazz in the marketplace today.

I don’t know about you but it’s people who have always turned me on to music. I’ve learned about the music from friends. Hey man, check out this track. Listen to this solo. Yeah, sounds great. Gotta get that.

That’s P2P or peer to peer marketing. The Napster paradigm makes that happen in a way never before possible.

Here’s a good example.

A couple of months ago I was on Napster and someone sent me an instant message. At the time, the user was downloading a track from my computer, something by Jobim. The instant message asked if I was a Jobim fan and we began to chat. I revealed that I was serious about Brazilian music. The communiqué was from a geologist in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He mentioned a particular song by Jobim and asked if I’d heard it. I hadn’t it but while he was waiting, I looked for it on Napster, found it, downloaded it, and started to listen, while we were chatting. Then, he translated the lyrics from Portugese to English.

After that, I jumped over to the All Music Guide, an absolutely indispensable website, seached for the composition and found out on which CD it appears. Then I jumped over to Amazon and actually bought it!

Peer to peer marketing in action.

And this is just the beginning.

Think of how the emerging digital conveniences will empower musicians, photographers, filmmakers, and writers when you can click on an icon, upload a cyber-dime into their accounts, and download their latest songs, images, films, or chapters - all without the barbaric inconvenience currently imposed by the entertainment industry.

The strict boundaries created by a handful of greedy white men who functioned essentially as a record business mafia, determining what would be recorded and how it would be sold, and where, is over. Eventually the movers and shakers of the Jazz industry are going to wake up. Today, they're doing a Rip Van Winkle. Email me if you know one Jazz label successfully utilizing P2P marketing.

Notes:
Shawn Fanning, the founder of Napster and the man who wrote the software, who turns twenty one next year: "this year's almost over, and its been much crazier than I could have imagined. Fortunately, the community is as strong as ever and continuing to grow, with the community approaching 50,000,000 registered users with as many as 1.3 million using the service at the same time..."

Billboard: "As of December 21, 2000 the Napster Community has grown to 48 million registered users. Most of this growth has been over the past year, during which CD sales rose by 9.6%."

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