Word: downloadable
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...access to the Internet spreads, it may soon be possible to download copyrighted music directly from the artists, paying in advance for the service, and to bypass the middlemen of the recording industry. The recording industry, which would lose much of its revenue in such a system, should not be able to block entrepreneurs from entering the market and attempting to create these alternate distribution channels. Unfortunately, it seems that the Napster ruling--by placing impossible demands on online distributors--may help prevent these new channels from emerging...
Admittedly, many students are upset by the prospect of losing the ability to download any song they like, anytime they want, for free. We recognize that artists have a legitimate claim to receive compensation for their work. However, the death of Napster will neither stop the trade of copyrighted works over the Internet nor provide artists with the compensation they deserve. Artists and the public would be better served by a new means of online music distribution that directly connects consumers to creators. But given the Ninth Circuit's ruling, that prospect seems exceedingly bleak...
Micropayments are just starting to take hold. On the New York Times website, today's paper is free, but last month's story about the presidential Inauguration costs $2.50, charged to your credit card. At Sony's music website, $1.99 lets you download singles like Rage Against the Machine's Ashes in the Fall. Internet forecasters expect more and more sites to impose smaller and smaller fees--in some cases mere fractions of a penny...
MP3s and other files downloaded from Harvard computers by non-Harvard Internet users are one example of information that moves in the outbound direction. Harvard students using Napster and other music-sharing Internet services to download files weren't causing a problem--but users who get their music from Harvard computers were taking up enough bandwidth to slow the network...
Although Davis said that at least 95 percent of the Harvard population uses the network primarily to download from the Internet, he said that students who need to send information in the outbound direction should be accommodated...