The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, April 27, 1999, Image 3

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    lie Battalion
Aggielife
Page 3 • Tuesday, April 27, 1999
Revolution
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new &a// game for music industry
BY MARIANO CASTILLO
The Battalion
A sk anyone with a computer and a
Resnet connection and they will tell
you the temptation to copy pro
grams from other students’ computers, and
especially to collect the popular MP3 mu
sic files, is always there. It is so strong, in
fact, that the majority of students on the
campus server do not even bother to resist
it.
MP3s are downloadable audio files that
are virtually indistinguishable from CD
quality music.
Mac Hooke, a freshman mechanical en
gineering major, said he has downloaded
and played MP3s since he discovered them
at Texas A&M, and it does not phase him
that it may be legal.
“Honestly, I haven’t given much
thought that it’s illegal,” he said. “[MP3s]
are just all over the place, and I think there
is an inability to get caught on campus.”
MP3s are the most popular files found
on the Resnet not only at A&M, but on
servers at universities across the United
States.
It is, for the most part, very acceptable
to create and share songs on MP3, but sev
eral laws are being broken.
The Recording Industry Association of
America (RIAA) reports the industry loses
approximately $5 billion to piracy every
year.
In the United States, $1 million is lost
daily.
According to the RIAA, the fastest grow
ing field of piracy is online, which they de
scribe in their piracy strategy as “the In
ternet culture of unlicensed use [that]
means the theft of intellectual property is
rampant, and the music business and its
artists are the biggest victims.”
MP3s are not all evil, however. It is legal
to back up CDs you paid for on MP3 as long
as their use remains private.
Wes Weibel, a Computer Information
System worker and sophomore electrical en
gineering major, said the downloading of
MP3s is not seen as a problem.
“It’s definitely widespread, but no one is
complaining about it,” he said.
Campaigns led by the RIAA fight to get
MP3s and other pirated software off uni
versity servers but with little success.
“It's like selling
marijuana compared to
selling heroin”
— Wes Weibel
Computer Information
Systems worker
The RIAA began the Soundbyting cam
paign to curb illicit copying and distribution
of MP3s and is geared specifically toward
universities.
Weibel said the Internet makes sup
pressing the number of MP3s nearly im
possible.
“It’s like dubbing cassette tapes. It’s
cheap and easy to get songs from all over,”
he said.
Weibel said while MP3s are the most
popular, they are not the only pirated pro
grams found on the Resnet.
“There is tons of software out there,” he
said. “For example, [there is] Photoshop,
which you can buy at the MSC for over $300
or download [from the Resnet] at the click
of a button for free. ”
He said the most popular ripped-off titles
are games such as “Quake” and “Starcraft. ”
With access to all of these programs, entre
preneurs quickly emerge.
Students who own CD burners offer to
make personalized CDs with MP3s for a
small fee.
Weibel said selling the CDs and full pro
grams are both illegal, but the repercussions
for each are very different.
“It’s like selling marijuana compared to
selling heroin,” he said of the CD burning
and the programs, respectively.
With CD burners gaining popularity and
entering the mainstream, companies are
frantically trying to find ways to control dig
ital music.
A company that has invented an alter
native is sightsound.com, which offers mu
sic and movie rentals as well as purchases
on their Website.
Through their site, customers can pur
chase either singles or albums and down
load them instantaneously for their enjoy
ment.
Scott Sander, chief executive officer and
president of sightsound.com, said in a press
release his idea to work on this technology
was based on his doubts of the stability of
digital music on CDs.
“Since 1993, we have been warning the
major owners of audio recordings that, by
the late 1990s, anyone with a PC would be
able to steal CD music at will,” he said.
“Our commitment to an open, secure
standard for the digital download of enter
tainment and our ability to offer the protec
tion of two United States patents will make
sightsound.com a vital ally of SDMI [Secure
Digital Music Initiative] and will be benefi
cial to artists, labels and, ultimately, con
sumers who prefer to purchase music di
rectly over the Internet.”
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