Don't march for Napster

Corporate co-optation of civil rights rhetoric is an abomination. It should be shunned.

By Andrew Leonard

Apr 2, 2001 |

You have the power to keep file-sharing over the Internet alive. Washington insiders should never win out over the will of the people. --Napster's home page

Is it time to start painting those protest signs and warm up the drums, to link arms and take it to The Man? On April 3, Napster wants "you, your parents, your kids and your friends" to meet at the top of the Union Station Metro escalators in Washington and walk together to a Senate Judiciary hearing on Capitol Hill. Perhaps, if we all just joined together, we could make the world a better place -- a place where every man, woman and child could freely download copyrighted intellectual property without fear of reprisal.

Never mind the likelihood that the proposed march, if it actually happens, will no doubt be just as much a fiasco as most of Napster's other initiatives. As Wired News' Declan McCullagh amusingly reported, Napster hasn't applied for any of the necessary permits for a march, and is planning its mass gathering in an area where any group larger than 20 people will attract police like flies to well, uh, you get the picture.

Let's also ignore for the moment the unfortunate reality that exercising your civil rights in support of Napster instead of aggrieved entertainment titans like Sony or Time-Warner is a tad muddle-headed. Napster, VC-backed and run by high-priced lawyers, is every bit as greedy as any music biz company. And for Napster to be bandying around insults like "Washington insider" is especially annoying -- who could possibly fit that role better than David Boies, the lawyer Napster hired to defend itself? Boies' main claim to fame is pulling off the amazing double feat of successfully defending IBM from an antitrust suit, and (for the time being) victoriously prosecuting Microsoft for the very same crime. One can assume he knows how to maneuver his way around Washington's halls of power.

But I can hear the murmurs of the faithful. We don't care -- Napster has a cause! The right to file-share must be preserved! To prevent Internet users from sharing the contents of their hard drives with all and sundry is a crime against cyberspace, a blasphemous violation of the sacrament of the digital revolution. Besides, record companies exploit artists and gouge consumers -- they must be stopped, by any means necessary. Napster -- of the people, by the people, for the people!

Faugh. Don't do it. Don't march for Napster, or for file-sharing. Not only is it just not worth it, but to do so would be an insult to the people who have marched for causes that represented something a little bit more meaningful than whether or not you can grab the newest Eminem track from the Net without paying for it.

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