Digital Piracy MP3 engenders a Catch-22 for the music establishment and independents alike. by STEPHEN GRIMSTEAD kay, let's say farmer Brown plants a field of corn and carefully nurtures his crop to maturity. It took a great deal of planning, funding, and labor based on hard-won expertise to make it all happen, right? (Do you think you could do it?) It's his livelihood, after all. Let's further imagine that the man has erected no effective barriers between his corn and unscrupulous or unthinking citizens who might decide to park by the roadside and help themselves to his yield. If one or two folks (undoubtedly assured of their uniqueness in this matter) load up a basket or so of corn, Brown's probably not going to notice or suffer. If, on the other hand, half of the county's population descends upon his crop in the middle of the night like so many bipedal locusts, farmer Brown gets screwed big time. If such a scenario becomes typical, the farmer will eventually have to consider one or more of three drastic options, none of which is particularly desirable: He will have to markedly raise the price of his vegetables, arrange for the protection of his property via extreme measures, or engage in the pursuit of a new livelihood. The people who create computer software and other digitally stored data face a comparable dilemma. For the most part, digital data is, by its very nature, ripe for theft. Arcane disc errors and a few other anomalies aside, digital copies are squeaky-clean, perfect clones of the original. Of course, there are ways for software developers to write "copy protection" codes into the programs they create. So why aren't all digital data copy-protected? There are several answers to that question, one of which is perhaps the easiest to grasp: Consumers hate copy-protected software. Software developers who encode copy protection into their product run the risk of being outsold by developers who market a similar product minus the copy protection. For musicians there is another consideration, real or imagined: It's said that copy-protected digital media compromise/degrade the sonic quality of the music itself. As wondrous products become more and more available to musicians, these issues are taking on a greater significance than at any time in the history of music-oriented commerce. Just as the means by which to sell one's music over the Internet are shaping up to true feasibility, artists from the comfortably established to the lean and eager independents are confronted with knotty problems regarding copyright infringement. The latest and most hotly debated topic of discussion along these lines involves the innovative MP3 format. Until recently, accepted wisdom stated that uploading/downloading large music files -- from full-blown songs to entire albums -- would not be practical until everyone was wired into fiber optics; the old copper telephone lines most of us used (and still use) to log onto the 'Net were, to put it simply, too slow to handle huge audio files. Of course, a musician could utilize a compression program to reduce the size of the file, but the reduction in the file's size was rather negligible, and the quality of the audio suffered noticeably. Then came MP3, and suddenly the rules changed dramatically. MP3 compresses music files down to one-twelfth (!) of their original size, yet an MP3 audio file does not suffer a significant loss in sonic integrity -- most people are hard put to discern a difference between MP3-compressed songs and the same music played from a CD. (This astonishing feat is accomplished by removing elements of audio supposedly inaudible to the human ear but which still hog a great deal of computer memory.) MP3's amazing performance in conjunction with today's fast computers and modems finally makes true online selling of music a reality. A potential music customer with a reasonably modern computer needs only an MP3 "player" (free at the MP3.com Web site) to hear the music he/she has purchased. If the customer's computer audio is running through a good set of speakers (or, better yet, a beefy stereo system), then it's time to rock. No computer/stereo connection? Another option (and here's where the plot really thickens): If the customer has a CD recorder ("burner"), that person can convert the MP3-formatted music to a burnable format like "wav" or "aiff" via an MP3 "decoder" (once again, free at MP3.com). Those converted files can then be recorded onto a blank CD, playable on any garden-variety CD player. On the merchant side of things, a musician interested in selling music over the Internet needs the same stuff recommended for consumers, plus an MP3 "encoder" (yep, free at MP3.comyou really must surf this site!). This will enable the seller to convert his/her original music to the MP3 format, which makes it ready to upload and sell. (A brief note: There isn't enough space here to go into every detail of the processes discussed in this article. For instance, I've had to assume that the musician possesses the knowledge and equipment to fly his/her music onto a computer's hard drive in the first place. Also, unless the musician maintains a Web site, it will be necessary to contract with a Web author of some sort -- after all, you've got to have a place on the 'Net where your music actually resides.) The present and prevailing business model according to which music gets recorded, packaged, distributed, and sold typically leaves all but top-selling artists with a startlingly paltry fraction of a CD's retail price. Obviously, the principal reason for this has to do with the existence of so many ravenous middlemen who take big bites out of the product's profit potential. Elimination of these middlemen would translate into much lower prices for the consumer and much more profit for the artist whose creative endeavor makes the consumer reach for a Visa card to begin with. An artist selling music on the 'Net could easily charge as little as four or five bucks for an entire CD's worth of MP3 audio and do quite well, even making cover artwork available for downloading. This is all exciting and wonderful, but there are a few problems to be dealt with before the corks start popping. At the moment there is no feasible way to copy-protect MP3 files, which means that one person buying an MP3-formatted album can effortlessly make endless copies for friends (and friends of friends). In fact, there are lots of illicit Web sites which have "pirated" (illegally copied) music and made it available for downloading. This is one reason organizations like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which represents this nation's high-powered record labels, are up in arms over the MP3 phenomenon. However, proponents of MP3 point to another possible reason, saying that the entrenched industry big shots represented by the RIAA are starting to panic, worried that they will lose control of the multi-billion-dollar music business. What if the future is populated by legions of independent music-makers who find it utterly unnecessary to include the boys down at MCA in their dealings with the music-buying public? Pirating of data is older than the floppy disc itself and will surely be a problem for years to come, particularly considering the fact that it's such a popular means of fudging on one's citizenly responsibilities. (Honestly, how many people do you know who have never used pirated software?) Nevertheless, MP3 offers an unprecedented way for musicians with an independent streak to market their product while telling the suits to take a long-overdue hike.