The Napster parasites

A.D.D. Marketing has been using similar instant-messaging and market research tactics for several months now, as part of what it calls the "Peer-to-Peer Targeting Program." Explains Matt Wechsler, head of online marketing for A.D.D., "The ability to see into the mind-set of users is phenomenal. To know that your user has downloaded the top three singles of an artist, while opting not to download the rest of the album, is key information. It then becomes our job to convert this fringe-level fan to a dedicated, album-buying fan by forming a relationship between them and the artist in some way."

In other words, you are being watched whenever you're on Napster by someone who wants to influence your buying habits (although Garland, at least, insists that BigChampagne does respect the privacy of Napster users, identifying them merely as "playlists" but not associating their names or log-ins with their profiles).

So is this what a Napster user can expect in the future? A barrage of instant messages from record labels and promoters, advertisements shoved in your face every few minutes and stealthy market researchers examining your hard drive for data that they can use to more effectively sell you pop culture? Sure, if you're a fan of Aimee Mann and want to nab her latest free tune, the promotion will be useful; but it's also inevitable that less principled marketers will start using this tool to push bands that you could not care less about. Your desktop could become a nest of open windows, the instant-messaging equivalent of spam. "As you can imagine, the potential for abuse is huge," admits Garland. "In a community like this one, a tool is only as good as its lowest-common-denominator user."

But Napster users have been getting their music for free, no strings attached, for over a year now; perhaps we shouldn't complain if the price of the service in the future is the acceptance of a few unsolicited messages. Napster, still battling the Recording Industry Association of America in the courts, needs to make amends with musicians and labels. And the "legal Napster" that Bertelsmann and Napster are promising will arrive this year -- likely to cost $5 a month or more -- will only be useful if the service contains music from all record labels, not just Bertelsmann's BMG service. Perhaps offering record labels unmitigated access to a database of millions of fans will be one way to smooth ruffled feathers and encourage everyone to work together.

As Wechsler sees it, "For a long time now, Napster has been seen as the end of the music industry as we know it. Yes, that is true. However, now I see labels starting to embrace the change and use it to their advantage as opposed to fighting evolution."

After all, Aimee Mann was once one of the most vocal critics of Napster and its disregard for the wishes of artists. In fact, when I first called Mann's publicist to find out about the instant-messaging promotion, her response was incredulous. "To be honest, she's anti-Napster, so I don't know that she would do that," she scoffed.

But Michael Hausmann, Mann's manager and director of SuperEgo records, now sees the service in a new light. After being approached by BigChampagne to try out the promotion, he was delighted by its success. "The response rate has been incredible," he gushed, referring to the 1,700 new names he has added to Mann's mailing list. "Really, I think that if we could have some kind of relationship with the people who are downloading the songs, we'd feel a lot better about [Napster]."

Maybe we can all get along, after all. As Garland puts it, "There has to be a way that artists, fans and labels can win in this space. Then we'd all be drinking the big champagne. It's our hopeful but persistent belief that there's a solution here in the ether."

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