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T he Web is now a vast storehouseof musical treasures—a startlingdiscovery that has sweptthrough many households andcollege campuses this year

thanks to the emergence of a single dis-tributed file sharing (DFS) program:Napster. Traditionally, the entertainmentindustry makes the bulk of its earningsby controlling the rights and distributionof its performers’ intellectual property.DFS provides a major challenge to theentertainment business’s rules because itlets consumers link to locally storedmusic files from around the world, dis-seminating this content in digital formfor next to nothing. Ironically, artistssuch as Metallica and Dr. Dre, whosemusic celebrates social anarchy, mustnow worry about the emergence of thisdigital anarchy.

Not that they’re alone. Napster’s enor-mous legal implications are being vigor-ously dissected in the press, the legis-lature, and courtrooms at every level.Although law and business have acquireda decade’s experience in dealing with theWeb’s effects on their domains, it will takethem many years to sort out the conse-quences of a maturing DFS technology.In a recent issue of Fortune, Amy Kovarquotes Intel Chairman Andy Grove asobserving that “The whole Internet couldbe re-architected by Napster-like tech-nology” (“Napster: The Hot Idea of theYear,” http://library.northernlight.com/

LH20000616010000693.html?cb=13&sc=0#doc_ ).

TECHNOLOGIES CONVERGE Thanks to Napster, DFS has caused

quite a stir by escaping the boundaries ofthe office and campus to go global via the

Internet. Yet file-sharing software is notnew. Sun, for example, developed itsNetwork File System (NFS) in the 1980sto let users store and share files amongLAN servers and workstations. NFS letsfiles on remote systems appear as if theyreside in a local system’s directory. Forwide area use, however, most files mustusually be retrieved from a large server,such as a mainframe, through a relativelyslow Internet connection using file trans-fer protocol (FTP).

An Internet for the massesSeveral factors converged to change this

model and make a program like Napsterpossible. First, the arcane Internet mor-phed into the user-friendly World Wide

Web. Melded to graphical browser clientsthe nontechnical could comprehend, theInternet ceased being the exclusivedomain of scholars, students, and the mil-itary.

Second, the increasing movementtoward broadband communications inthe home, particularly with the emer-gence of digital subscriber line (DSL) andcable modems, gave home consumershigh-speed Internet connections thatrivaled those previously restricted tomajor corporations. With DSL, forexample, a 1-Mbyte file that would taketwo minutes to download on a conven-tional modem can be acquired in abouteight seconds.

Digital compressionThird, digital media and the software

to play it developed with explosive speed.Compact disks led the charge, digitizingmusic with Eight to Fourteen Modulation(EFM). This system encodes data whenit’s recorded and decodes it when it’splayed. During encoding, EFM translatesa series of 8 data bits into an arbitrary set

of 14 data bits, which are returned to theoriginal 8-bit format during decoding.This modulation serves the two-fold pur-pose of implementing a rudimentary typeof error correction while increasing discstorage efficiency by reducing the num-ber of pits.

In addition to CDs, proprietary formatssuch as Microsoft’s wave audio files alsobecame popular, but had limited utilitybecause they produced files so large it took32 Mbytes to store a three-minute song.Thus, the digital migration stalled untilnew compression technologies shifted itinto overdrive—specifically the lossy com-pression technique called Motion PictureEquipment Group (MPEG) Audio Layer3, better known as MP3 (http://www.iis.

Distributed File Sharing:Barbarians at the Gates?Michael Macedonia, US Army Stricom

Will the MP3 format andNapster’s distributed file sharing bankrupt musicpublishers—or help themreach even more consumers?

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fhg.de/amm/techinf/layer3/index.html).Developed by the Fraunhofer Institute forIntegrated Circuits and the University ofErlangen, MP3 can compress CD-qualityaudio by a factor of 10, reducing thatthree-minute song file to 3 Mbytes.

Today, tools known as rippers—easilyavailable as shareware or freeware—canconvert a music CD’s audio tracks to MP3format, essentially “ripping” them off thedisc. Digital audio players include well-known software like WinAmp (http://www.winamp.com/) and any number ofproprietary packages bundled with PCsound cards.

More speed, more spaceFourth, the breakneck pace of personal-

computer development has given us con-sumer-grade PCs with fast processors andhuge storage capabilities. Generally, fastercomputers mean faster network process-ing and the ability to run computationallyexpensive, multimedia content such asMP3s and digital video. Most new PCprocessors operate at 500 MHz ormore—a speed that’s likely to increaserapidly given that the heated competitionbetween chip makers AMD and Intel hasalready broken the 1-GHz barrier.

PC data storage capacity has shownsimilar progress, with 60-Gbyte hard

drives now available for less than $300.Less than a decade ago, nothing short ofa mainframe could store this much data.Portable media are equally cheap, withrecordable CD drives now costing whatfloppy drives once did, and the blankCDs needed to feed them priced at amere 50 cents. Yet each disk holds 640Mbytes of data—or more than 200 MP3files.

INNOVATION AND DIFFUSIONAll these technologies were thriving in

the marketplace last year. It took a 19-year-old computer science student atBoston’s Northeastern University to syn-thesize them into a revolutionary newmix.

A simple planShawn Fanning just wanted an easy

way to find and share MP3 files.Nicknamed “Napster” in high school,Fanning conceived a program to storeand access MP3 files. His creation takesadvantage of the extra space available onmost home computers’ hard drives—andtheir constant or near-constant connec-tion to the Internet.

Fanning turned his idea into a com-pany, Napster Inc. (http://www.napster.com/). Napster’s very simple architecture

works by reserving a portion of eachuser’s local hard drive for storing MP3files ripped from audio CDs. The clientsoftware then advertises the files to agroup of Napster servers. Users browse ahuge directory on the servers and, whensomeone wants to retrieve a particularsong, the server points that person to anyof several user hard drives that containthe desired file. To help estimate down-load times, Napster also tells the userwhat kind of network connection thefile’s owner has.

Developing a convenient way to sharefiles has proven Fanning’s greatest con-tribution. Napster, like successful servicessuch as America Online, is not the mostsophisticated creation but is easiest to useand most popular. AOL President BobPittman seemed to acknowledge this par-allel between Napster and his companywhen he observed at the ElectronicEntertainment Expo in Los Angeles that“The recent legal hoopla over MP3s anddigital music doesn’t show that con-sumers want to be thieves, it shows thatthey want to listen to music on their PCs”(http://europe.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/05/12/aol.keynote.idg/).

Indeed they do. According to Kovar,Napster has attracted 10 million users ina mere 10 months.

Napster’s dark sideNapster has its pathologies, however.

Indiana University found that Napsterdownloads of MP3 files accounted for 60percent of the school’s network traffic(http://www.fortune.com/fortune/2000/03/20/nap.html).

Napster use also raises security ques-tions, since the user must share part ofthe local disk while online. Worse, othershave already crafted an application,“Wrapster” (http://members.fortunecity.com/wrapster), that archives any kind offiles—such as a Perl script or even a virus—inside a legitimate MP3 file.

Moreover, since the Napster servers donot actually store MP3 files, the companyargues it is not violating copyright laws.Beyond the legal gray area of whether thecompany is facilitating copyright in-fringement, there is no evidence of a busi-ness model at work because Napstercharges nothing for its service.

Figure 1. Napster makes it easy to find and download music files stored on hard disks around theworld.

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won’t make anybody rich. So, on the onehand, the entertainment companies mayhave little to worry about.

On the other hand, we live in Internettime, so a succession of DFS clients andrelated innovations will likely continue tooutpace the law. Moreover, DFS isimmune to political boundaries—muchlike Internet gambling, which has movedto off-shore domains. These factors implythat life will only get more complicatedfor those whose livelihood depends onpumping CDs and DVDs into stores.

The entertainment industry may try tocounter the parasitic effects of DFS withdigital watermarking, copy protectionschemes, and encryption. However, thesemethods are peripheral to the issue ofdigital product distribution. With theexception of AOL/Time Warner, leadingentertainment companies such asUniversal Music, Sony, and Bertelsmanndo not have a major stake in the Internet.Neither do they control the personalcomputer market—a major concern con-sidering that in five years the average PCwill likely have the storage capacity toarchive a music publisher’s entire library.

However, the entertainment industrydoes appear to be realizing, finally, thatthe Web is swarming with young andaffluent consumers. An obvious strategy,given the industry’s lack of leverage in thePC sector, is to move consumers awayfrom personal computers.

The Trojan horse that decides thiscampaign may well be the inexpensivegame console. Sony’s Playstation II is agenuine multimedia machine completewith AV ports, DVD, a 3D sound sys-tem—and a broadband connection.Microsoft’s X-Box boasts similar fea-tures and ups the ante with a hard diskideal for storing MP3 files. Not only arethese boxes proprietary, their networkportals will likely be as well.

Gnutella and other Napster variations

A more anarchic version of Napster’sfile sharing model, Gnutella (http://www.gnutella.wego.com), seeks to eliminatethe middleman altogether. Developed byan employee of AOL subsidiary Nullsoft(http://www.nullsoft.com/), Gnutella wasaccidentally posted to the Web and with-drawn days later. Yet unauthorizedcopies continued to spread while enthu-siasts—with the original author’s help—reverse engineered the Gnutella protocolin Linux fashion and created several newclients, including the highly popularGnut (http://www.umr.edu/~jjp/).

Gnutella eliminates the central serverfor files and file directories. Instead, clientspropagate search requests among them-selves. When you retrieve the client soft-ware, you initiate your searches firstthrough well-known sites published onmail lists or the Web. This method, simi-lar to the spanning-tree algorithm used fornetwork bridging, uses time to live (TTL)counters to prevent loops. It also allowsyour client to quickly identify thousandsof other clients and locate a file, whetherMP3, video, or some other format (http://members.tripod.com/~retep/articals/file_sharing_programs.html).

Gnutella pays a penalty for its inde-pendence from a central server, however.It’s not as easy to use as Napster. Worse,its searches consume substantial band-width since the request messages repli-cate rapidly and widely over the Web,much like a message with a rogue visualbasic script. Moreover, Gnutella lacks abusiness model because there is no busi-ness. Even the clients are free.

Another Napster alternative, the exper-imental DFS system Freenet (http://freenet.sourceforge.net), is also decen-tralized. Freenet attempts to reduce band-width requirements by moving filesamong hosts to implicitly balance traffic,similar to Web caching. In addition,Freenet encrypts the files on each user’shard drive so that even the user does notknow which files are locally present orshared. In this case, ignorance is theoret-ical bliss with regard to copyright law.

OUT OF CHAOS, MORE CHAOSUntil DFS grows a business model, it

G iven technology’s relentless pace, aPalm X or Nokia 3G phone maybecome the ultimate MP3 platform

of choice. I’m putting my money on aclosed, Web-based system, however.Regardless, with AOL/Time Warner—the world’s largest media-Internet-cable-browser-e-mail company—in this race,we should be guaranteed an exciting ride.Let the games begin. ✸

Michael Macedonia is chief scientist and technical director of the US Army Simulation, Training, and Instrumenta-tion Command, Orlando, Fla., (http://www.stricom.army.mil/stricom/aboutus/macedonia.html).

Napster, like successfulservices such as

America Online, is not the most sophisticated creation but is easiest

to use and most popular.Michael Macedonia, Stricom, 12350Research Parkway, Orlando, FL, 32826-3276, macedonia@computer.org

The Computer Society

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The Computer Society

publishes over 150

conference proceedings

a year.

For a preview of the latest

papers in your field, visit

computer.org/proceedings/