Ding dong, the witch ain't dead. Despite Wednesday's ruling against Napster by a federal judge, the black magic of free music still thrives online. And, barring some kind of armed bounty hunting for twenty-first century bootleggers, illegal digital downloads will be available as long as there is an Internet. Yep, pretty much, forever.

Online bootlegging, of course, was going on long before Napster hit the scene. Music fans began swapping hot tunes in Internet Relay Chat and America Online chat rooms nearly a decade ago; it just took a little more patience and perseverance. Napster simply created a shrewd interface that made it easy for newbies to get in on the action too. As a result of Napster's subsequent popularity, a lot of people -- especially those within the recording industry -- have rather naively been equating the fate of this one company in California with the fate of a much more complex and elusive network of online file distribution. It's as if a victory over Napster is somehow a victory over the entire digital underground. Hardly.

Right now, there are numerous other sites and programs that are out-Napstering Napster, including Scour, CuteMX, iMesh, Gnutella and Freenet. These wares let you search not only for music, but for video and image files (hello, porn fans!). Gnutella and Freenet are particularly unstoppable because they don't employ centralized computer servers (like Napster) to facilitate the illegal activity; instead, everyone who uses one of the programs is connected more or less directly with someone else. No middleman. No one to sue. No shut-down.

The only thing the case against Napster proves is that it's going to be tough for anyone to profit from bootlegs online. Napster was a lost cause from the start because this was really the only service it provided. If Shawn Fanning, Napster's founder, had applied his nifty file-trading interface to a legal activity, he might be a rich, unwanted man after all. Then again, it's never too late.

With Napster down most likely for the count, the question is, what's next? The Recording Industry Association of America could capitalize on the verdict by unplugging other commercial services, like Scour. Theoretically, the RIAA should really go after AOL. Unlike Napster, AOL has actually profited from members using its computers to swap copyright protected materials (bootleggers have been paying to trade wares in AOL's public and private chat rooms from day one). Of course, with Time Warner now under the AOL umbrella, don't look for the RIAA to pursue that avenue any time soon.

No matter what the RIAA pursues, however, it's fighting a no-win battle. Sure, it can stop start-ups like Napster from going IPO, but it can't stop anyone who has the will and the bandwidth from swapping the new Lil' Kim album. The rise and fall of Napster is nothing more than a fairy tale told by Metallica. In reality, the only way to stop free music online is to shut down the IRC, Usenet, e-mail and, essentially, the whole damn Net itself.

DAVID KUSHNER
(July 29, 2000)