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Napster Awakes

Posted on 05/02/2006 at 12:40:06 PM by Tom Peters

Tom Peters points to why librarians might want to consider Napster.

Earlier this week, after years of a court-induced coma, the Napster.com Web site became live and free again. This time, the Napster executives claim they are too legit to quit.

Here's the new deal. Napster claims to have two-million songs in its master collection. If an individual fills out a no-cost Web registration form, he or she is then allowed to listen to any and all of the tunes up to five times. You do the math.

Okay, I will. That's ten million potential circs per user. If the average song lasts three minutes, that's 30 million minutes of listening, or 500,000 hours, or 20,833 days, or 57 years. If you take some time off to sleep, work, go to class, or just give your eardrums a rest, that's easily a lifetime of listening.

You can buy individual tracks, or entire albums, or subscribe for $9.95 per month for unlimited downloads and no ads. If you want to have unlimited transfers to your MP3 player, the subscription price increases to $14.95 per month.

Two million sounds like a lot of tunes. Let's do some spot checking:

Captain & Tennille—A few albums of the best of/greatest hits variety.
Beethoven—Call in the name-authority squad! Dozens of name entries, including Ludwig and others.
MC Hammer—Three albums listed under MC Hammer, and two other tracks listed by Prime Minister/MC Hammer/F.T.F. and Prime Minister/MC Hammer/Keli-Kel.
The Hush Sound—One album released in 2005, So Sudden; they sound pretty good!
Boxcar Willie—Two albums.
Perry Como—Dozens of name entries again, with "Karaoke—Perry Como" my personal favorite.
Screamin' Jay Hawkins—Seven albums listed under "Screamin'..." and one different album under "Screaming..."
Barrence Whitfield and the Savages—One measly track ("Pony Time") under Barrence Whitfield, with one album thrown in if you search by artist on The Savages (which returns the 1990 release Let's Lose It by Barrence Whitefield and The Savages).

Why Should Librarians Care What Happens to Napster Reborn?
I couldn't find any mention of institutional-subscription options. Unless you work in a music library, your library's collection of recorded music probably leaves something to be desired. And it does seem that, as a form of creative, artistic expression, music has sunken to a leprous low in this first decade of the new millennium; Napster and iTunes, these days, have Barney and The Wiggles waiting in the wings. Unclean, unclean!

Beehive

But here's one reason we should pay attention: Narchive. When I first read about the Narchive, I thought it was a compound word describing a swarming hive of narcotics officers. Or perhaps NARA had teamed up with Napster? Stranger things have happened.

Actually, it's a contraction for Napster Archive. The Napster execs score ten bonus points for retaining the final e. The Narchive hasn't been revealed to the public yet, but it will be a community space for sharing free music using NapsterLinks, stories, photos, images, trenchant commentary, etc.

Everybody seems to be getting in on the Web 2.0 online community building thing.