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Dear Subscribers:

The winter holidays are a musical time, so what better season for a look at music on the Net? The technology's getting easy enough for everyone - even parents and teachers - to join in the fun. So here's our lineup for this second week of December:

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Net music: the MP3 phenomenon

The news is, some 3 million tracks, or songs, are downloaded from the Internet every day, and more and more music lovers are not only downloading tunes, but sharing and chatting about them - people around the world gathering around "the stereo" in a virtual sort of way. And not just technophiles. With developments like MP3.com's "Project Mom," launched this fall, MP3s are becoming easy even for you and me.

But this isn't a news story. It's a special feature on a major Internet development - a backgrounder with a little something for everybody:

"MP3" means a whole bunch of things. Basically, it's just a technology that compresses standard audio tracks/files into much smaller sizes so that they can be sent around the Net without losing sound quality. When people talk about "MP3s" they mean songs or audio tracks they download from Web sites, whether personal pages or "portals." MP3 is also a revolution of sorts - one of those Internet phenomena that change industries but enhance individual lives in simple, intuitive ways. And, because of all the above, it's a controversy; the recording industry sees MP3 as a threat to CD and record sales. There have already been music piracy cases involving the industry, the US government, universities, and students.

Our resident 'music freak'

We asked Jasper how he'd describe his MP3 expertise. "Well, I would say that I am a Net music freak. [MP3] allows me to try music that I normally wouldn't (that's how I got into techno* - the music of the future). I have over 4 gigs of MP3s (translates to about 4,000 minutes of music) and … I get more and more everyday!"

Get Jasper together with all the other Net music aficionados out there, and you get an MP3 explosion. Part of the explanation, he told us, is that, as in the real world, so in cyberspace, one's musical tastes are part of a person's identity. You can say a lot about who you are by listing your favorite tunes on your Web site, and that's what more and more people are doing. "It's sort of part of the whole personal Web page thing now," Jasper said.

Then there's the economic factor, both for musicians and listeners. "MP3s are popular for the obvious reasons," Jasper said, "because they are free or really cheap, and they allow you to delve into a genre that you normally wouldn't because of the money or time involved. I believe that, while illegal trafficking in MP3s has been mainstream for a while, it's the fact that popular artists and new unknown talents are now releasing all or portions of their songs on the Internet that really validates it as a medium." The Internet allows artists to go directly to their audience, bypassing the bottleneck that record companies, retailers, and other parts of the music food chain represent.

Why MP3s?

We asked Jasper how he got started with MP3s, and his answer included some good advice. "I first started using MP3s about two years ago. I had a cable modem [fast connection] and time to spare. Even though the best thing about MP3s are their size, don't expect to download a whole CD's worth (about 74 megs) any time soon, unless you have a fast connection. I don't know how I found out about them, because at that time they were still an unknown, but I do know that I spent countless hours searching for my favorite songs. I love music, especially techno, but I didn't want to waste my money on it. So I used MP3s. Up until recently my collection was composed entirely of illegal material [pieces that Net users transfer from CDs to their Web sites and make available for public downloading], but that was part of the fun! Now, as MP3s become more mainstream, it's painfully easy to find a good song for free, whether it's a legal release (for example at EMusic.com or MP3.com) or an illegal rip you find at Scour.net or [by clicking on "MP3" at the top of] Lycos.com, two music search engines."

MP3.com itself decided it had to make Net music "one-click easy." As they explain it, "After countless, tortuous hours of parental phone tech support, our engineers decided to launch 'Project Mom'." Now it's just MP3.com's help page, a good place to start from scratch.

A bit more on the legality issue: "Probably 95% of the songs on the Net are illegal," Jasper told us. "My guess is that's why they're popular - cheap, the spirit of freedom, the counter-culture thing. The songs at MP3.com are all legal either because the artist doesn't have a label or is giving away a song as a promotion - but the latter is rare still. For example, [Chuck D of hip hop group] Public Enemy either started his own label or quit his label because he felt he needed to be involved in this technology" (here's the story in SONICNET).

Jasper's picks

As for his MP3 software picks: "All good MP3 players are free. I use the Winamp player. It requires absolutely no customization, although you can tweak advanced settings for better playback)." To move songs from a CD to a computer, "I would recommend shelling out some bucks for MusicMatch" ($29.95 for CD-quality recording, but the standard version is free).

We asked him to get re-e-e-ally basic. "Winamp plays the song, Real Jukebox will organize and play lots of songs. MusicMatch does both but also takes songs off CDs you own and puts them on your computer [which in itself is not illegal - it's putting them on a server and making them downloadable by others that is]. MusicMatch is intuitive, it's gotten great reviews.

"I don't have a stereo," Jasper continued. "So if I bought a CD, I'd put it on my computer right off the bat. And you can use MusicMatch to mix songs like a DJ does. It also allows you to play music on portable devices like a Rio which you've taken off a CD [see a piece comparing a Rio MP3 player and a Sony MD Walkman]. I've looked at MP3 portable players myself a lot. They're not really worth it yet."

The next big thing

Then there's the next big thing in Net music technology, well, one of them, anyway. Until now the focus was more on the individual's experience with MP3s - downloading, listening, making a playlist, maybe sharing one's musical interests on a personal home page. Software called Napster makes MP3s a collective experience, like getting a bunch of people in a room with a stereo, playing tunes for each other, and discussing them. "Napster allows everybody to connect to a global chat room and share the MP3 parts of their hard drives," Jasper said. "People can look at what you're playing and download it essentially right from your hard drive. It's free now - it's in beta (there aren't many bugs at all - I've used it a lot)." That's the good news. The bad news is that the recording industry is suing Napster.com for creating "a black market for illegal copies of digital music," CNET reports.

* Jasper's definition of techno, his favorite music: "It is a combination of jazz and math, music and technology, that breaks through the boundaries of conventional classical and pop models. There are NO rules."

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MP3 news and views

  1. News

    • "Net to Account for 10% of Total Music Sales"
    • Contrary to what most of the recording industry reportedly thinks: "The Web is Not a Threat to Music", says a senior executive in a speech.
    • "RIAA Suing Upstart Startup" - Wired News's report that the Recording Industry Association of America, the record industry's lobbying group, is suing Napster for piracy. Here's CNET's (mentioned above).
    • "MP3.com launches 4,100 Interactive Radio Stations" - Napster.com isn't the only company enabling music-based online community. This is another example, indicating how busy RIAA lawyers will be if they have to sue every company putting music-sharing on the Web. According to InternetNews.com, MP3.com's "Stations" feature will allow anyone to create his/her own interactive Internet radio station using the site's database of 200,000+ songs from more than 35,000 artists. Visitors to your station can look at your playlist and play, replay, reorganize, and skip songs on it. Here's the community part: An e-mail feature gives the "station manager" the ability to "make songs available for rapid communication and sharing among their audiences and encourages community-building online as well as offline."
    • More evidence that this snowball won't stop rolling: Plans by Platinum Entertainment, the biggest independent record label in the US, to put its entire music catalog in its Web site, free for the downloading - Wired News.
    • "University snoops for MP3" - At least one university, the U. of South Carolina, Spartanburg, is now "monitoring its network using software that can search for music downloads," Wired News reports. This 3-part piece offers various perspectives in the debate.
    • Wired News's continuously updated MP3 news page. Examples: 71 Carnegie Mellon students' November 8 loss of Internet-access privileges for alleged illegal MP3 use and University of Oregon student Jeffrey Levy's conviction of MP3 piracy in August.

  2. Views

    • Net-music industry view: In "Michael's Minute", MP3.com community administrator Michael describes another next wave in Net music using his company's just-coined term "MSPs." Instead of Internet service providers, music service providers, which supposedly will bring you your hand-picked music - anytime, anywhere, on any device - via the Internet.
    • A musician's perspective: Very tech-literate musician David Bowie offers his views on MP3s in Shift, a digital-culture magazine.
    • An MIT Media Lab researcher's view that MP3 has only just begun - Wired News.

Tell us what's happening with MP3s in your home or classroom - via feedback@netfamilynews.org.

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'Can Technology Wait?'

  1. A report

    Given what you've told us in our Subscriber Survey this fall (full report coming next week), this is not a burning question for most of you. But you probably have colleagues and friends who do wonder just how technology-literate their children really need to be. In a Connect for Kids report this week, managing editor Patrice Pascual confronts the issue squarely, citing job- and wage-related reasons for tech literacy posed by recent government reports. There's food for thought here, whether you're considering buying a grandchild a computer for schoolwork or you've volunteered to help out with computers in an inner-city after-school program.

  2. Actions taken

    Meanwhile, there are large-scale efforts afoot to narrow the digital divide. This week the US Commerce Department held a day-long "Digital Divide Summit" in Washington, with government, industry, minority, and civil rights groups in attendance.

    Another project is PowerUP, launched last month. Based in Silicon Valley (Calif.), it involves national public-service organizations such as AmeriCorps*VISTA, the National Urban League, YMCA of the USA, and Boys & Girls Clubs of America; corporations; foundations; and the US Education Department. The goal of this multi-million-dollar program, which aims to reach thousands of children quickly, nationwide, is to teach "underserved young people" technology and Internet skills in schools and community centers. PowerUP's Web site says the curriculum is tied to students' own school and national tech-literacy goals. The program's "Five 'Cyber' Promises" describe both its practical philosophy and the teaching process - basics like face-to-face interaction as well as that of the online sort, safe physical environments, and structured activities.

Do email us any comments you have on the digital divide, programs like PowerUP, or technology and kids. Your input is always welcome!

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The power of software

Two "think pieces" and a book worth reading: Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor whom the New York Times describes as "one of the nation's leading experts on law and cyberspace," has put all Netizens on alert. In his new book, "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace," Lessig says computer code - not the legal code - is what regulates cyberspace and our online activities. Times legal columnist Carl Kaplan interviewed Lessig, who told him that, right now, cyberspace code supports free speech, a good balance of various interest groups' rights, and other important democratic values and practices. But that's changing, Lessig says, because of the increasing demands of commercial interests, and Net users can't afford to be naïve or apathetic. "We are no more ready for this Internet revolution than the Soviets were ready for theirs a decade ago," the Times quotes Lessig to say. Here's his book's promotional site.

Times digital commerce columnist Denise Caruso uses Lessig's views as a lens to look at "the legacy of the Microsoft trial." "Software - written by a team of sleep-deprived programmers in some fusty cubicle - is the code that lays down the absolute law by which we live our digital lives," Denise writes. "We are not free to change that code; our choice is to love it or leave it." She goes on to say that "in the Microsoft trial … the battle is really over whose law is to be sovereign, software's or the government's."

Nobody's arguing for more government control of the Internet, here, but there is an argument for an alertness on users' part to what "the code" is doing to their online experiences. One way to support good Netizenship is keeping informed, considering views like Professor Lessig's, and discussing what's involved in protecting democratic values and behaviors on the Internet with our students and children. If you have participated either in dinner-table or classroom discussion, please email us about it.

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A subscriber writes

In response to our item last week on "Search engines and the meaning of life", Robert in Texas shared his top pick:

"I find Dogpile to be the easiest search engine to use since it runs all the other major engines for you."

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That does it for this week. Have a great weekend.

Sincerely,

Net Family News


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