The "Napster" brief

This is one of the briefs that caught my attention. Napster, filing on the side of the petitioners? Did I read that right? One could think that considering the origins of Napster they would at least refrain from taking any sides but I guess nothing is sacred, not even your origins.

One part I really liked was on page 9, where it is written that:

Despite the fact that amici's services offer higher quality files and features than Respondents' services, amici do considerably less volume than Respondents for one simple reason. Respondents offer their stolen content for free, a price impossible to beat for legitimate businesses which acquire the rights to sell their product and support systems to track, account and pay for those rights. Both amici's and Respondents' success depend on the volume of users.

Where to begin? First it's really hasty to conclude that there is one simple reason. For example, even though water might be free coming out of the tap, does it mean that bottled water companies can't compete with the product because it's free?

On top of that, they state that their services offer higher quality files and features that the "free" services. This is not completely correct. For example, if Ford sold a car that had way more features than BMW but that would only take Ford fuel (sold at ten times the price of the normal fuel), could we be shocked that Ford isn't succeeding? Most paying services (with a few notable exceptions) also include DRM which is a foreign concept to music. An MP3 file on those systems, just like a CD you buy, doesn't come with strings attached. The file you get from Napster comes with many strings. Did you remember agreeing to a 10 page license agreement when you bought your last CD?

Finally, while it is true that you are not directly paying for the file when acquiring it over free networks, it is not true that the cost is "free". There are other costs you might incur, such as time lost and frustration. For example, it might take you some time to download that mp3 file. Maybe you'll get some corrupted version. Maybe the ripping wasn't done right. There are clearly other facets to the cost than the one mentionned in the brief.

And one more, the title of point B on page 6 makes me smile:

B. Amici Are The True Innovators, Not The Respondents

Without going into the detail of the explanation, I found it amusing to compare these two technologies. Who is the judge on "true innovation". Maybe I find supernodes to be a great invention. Maybe it's the DRM. Maybe it's the way they hash files so that multiple people can contribute to the transfer of one file at the same time. This paragraph takes a very narrow view on the definition of Innovator, essentially one that only allows room for their accomplishements.