Dean Hampton


Are You Stealing Music?
So, you just got a brand new CD and you love it. In fact, you are so excited about it that, after listening to it a few times, you tape it and mail it to a friend who has similar tastes in jazz. Your friend loves it as much as you do, and a few days later he has another friend over. Except this guy is someone who has never really connected with jazz. But he hears this tape, likes it and wants to hear more.

They then talk about different styles of jazz and decide to call you to see if you will put together a starter package of tapes for the new kid on the jazz block. You agree, and within a week you mail more tapes of music recorded from your collection of CDs, tapes and records.

Have you done anything wrong? Practically all recordings today carry a protective statement such as, "All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws" or "All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction, hiring, lending, public performance, and broadcast prohibited."

Generally, as an individual, once you have purchased a CD or tape, you have the right to reproduce the music for your own personal use. But, once you provide it to another person, you have stepped over the line.

Many recording industry officials consider a tune or two here and there just good advertising. It is considered "casual reproduction" and few civil or criminal cases ever result. But, let's alter the scenario slightly.

You are proud of your collection and decide to share it openly. You get on your computer, rip your favorite tunes into MP3 format, and locate them all in the same computer folder. Now, you can put your copies on disk and mail them to your friends, just like you did with those tapes.

If you are really into the sharing thing, however, you soon find that it's a little expensive paying for zip disks and postage. And then, the very thing you need comes along: Napster.

At www.napster.com, you read, "Join the largest, most diverse online community of music lovers in history by downloading and installing Napster. It's fun, simple and free."

When you sign on to the Internet and open your Napster software, you have an opportunity to point their 20 million members to your MP3 collection for downloading from that folder you created on your hard drive. Likewise, you can take your pick of other members' music and get all the tunes you always wished you had... but didn't spend the money to buy.
Which takes us back to the title of this article.

If the US Postal Service learned that you were using the mail to distribute illegally copied (i.e. stolen) materials, be it music, movies or books, they would stop you in your tracks, maybe even prosecute you.

And if you hired a trucking company to take care of your "distribution" and told them what you were up to, they would have good reason to feel they were an accessory to a potential crime.

Unfortunately, the 20 million users of Napster don't feel that what they are doing is a crime. Or, they just don't really care.

Napster has recently appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to plead their case. And a message on their Internet software from Napster CEO Hank Barry states: "We believe that file sharing for noncommercial purposes is lawful and that the 20,000,000 members of the Napster community are not engaged in copyright infringement."

The lawsuits against Napster have begun to mount, with the rock band Metallica at the top of the list. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is next in line and has also appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to state their case.

Other musicians have also started to organize to stop this music file swapping. Funded partly by Metallica and Dr. Dre, the Artists Against Piracy (www.ArtistsAgainstPiracy.com) kicked off its national ad campaign against Napster and other swap sites on July 11. Their theme is simple: "If a song means a lot to you, imagine what it means to us." The AAP's full-page ads ran in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

AAP's leader, Noah Stone explained the goal of the group. "We want to educate fans and remind them of the value of music. But we also want to give artists a powerful voice in the debate over technology and music."

While "Napster music" appears to be free, I believe that there is a huge price to pay for it. Remember the old Fram Oil Filter ads? "Pay me now, or pay me later." If Napster is not stopped or at least contained, we will all pay when great musicians finally quit the business, record stores (online, and brick and mortar) close their doors, and many of our favorite labels disappear.

Other MP3 News
Hewlett-Packard and Emusic.com have entered an arrangement that will infuse $3 million of needed revenue into the Internet MP3 distributor. When purchasing an HP CD-Writer, recordable drive customers will get two months of free, unlimited downloads from Emusic. HP claims that 80 percent of people who buy the company's CD-Writers use the drives to record MP3 music files downloaded from the Internet.

Casio has a new watch that I wanted for Father's Day (and didn't get). Their new model WMP-1V MP3 Audio Wrist Watch can play music up to 33 minutes at CD quality, 44 minutes at near CD quality, and 66 minutes of FM broadcast quality. Simply transfer your MP3 music files to the watch via USB port, plug in the stereo headphones that come with the watch, and enjoy up to four hours of non-skip playback before recharging the battery. You can even spend about $20 for a cassette adapter and play the watch files through your car stereo. MP3.com gives this player a four-out-of-five stars rating. All this for about $250 (street price: $199).

I'm glad I didn't get that watch in June, because IBM has just announced its new hard drive that will be used in portable MP3 players and digital cameras as early as this fall. In a June 20 press release, IBM said, "IBM is tripling the capacity -- but not the size -- of the world's smallest hard disk drive, paving the way for a new generation of 'go-anywhere' pervasive computing devices and applications."

The new drive's storage capacity is a whopping one gigabyte. IBM claims, "Packing one gigabyte (GB) of data storage capacity on to a disk the size of an American quarter, IBM's newest Microdrive can hold up to 1,000 high-resolution photographs, a thousand 200-page novels or nearly 18 hours of high-quality digital audio music." (They must be talking about those short country & western tunes instead of the longer jazz tracks. My guess is that you should get about 200 five minute MP3 tunes at CD quality.)

To further understand the size of these disks, here are some handy terms from www.dictionary.com:

• Byte: a sequence of 8 bits (enough to represent one character of alphanumeric data) processed as a single unit of information.
  
• Kilobyte: 1024 bytes of information.
  
• Megabyte: a unit of information equal to one million (1,048,576) bytes.
  
• Gigabyte: a unit of information equal to one billion (1,000,000,000) bytes or one thousand megabytes.
  
  

Based on these definitions, the word "jazz" is four bytes. And the word jazz repeated enough to fill a one gigabyte drive would have to be duplicated 250,000,000 times.

And, that's plenty of jazz!

---

The McFadden Brothers (Lonnie, left - Ronald, right) in "After Hours"

"After Hours" Connects
There are many enjoyable things about "After Hours," the jazz-based musical revue currently running at Union Station's H&R Block City Stage.

First and foremost is how it offers a winning combination of family entertainment and vintage Kansas City jazz. Want to introduce the younger generation to the delights of KC's home-grown approach to America's music? "After Hours" is a joyful primer. Round up the kids and head on down to the cool comfort of the City Stage.

The McFadden Brothers (Lonnie, left, Ronald, right) in "After Hours"

Another delight about this lively jam is the sense of jazz club intimacy that is sustained throughout. It's smoky (not to worry, it's only an illusion) and a little boozy (also just a fleeting prop), onstage tables and chairs (for audience members who want to be down front) blend well with the authentic jazz club set, and the performers are able to interact with the head-bobbing crowd from just a short distance away.

Most engaging of all, though, is the manner in which some of KC's most popular musicians have been put to perfect use in this 80 minute cavalcade of hits. Perennial favorites the McFadden Brothers bring new meaning to the word versatility (trumpeter Lonnie and saxophonist Ronald also sing, dance and act with equal pizzazz), vocalists Geneva Price and Sharon Thompson are an ideal, complementary team (Price is the torchy chanteuse, Thompson the charismatic belter), Dwight Foster covers the bass, tenor saxophone and a surprisingly lyrical guitar, drummer Donivan Bailey is a glowing, grooving rhythm section anchor, and pianist/musical director (and composer of the should-be city anthem, "Kansas City's My Beat") Dr. Ronnell Bright makes it clear why he was a favorite accompanist of jazz legends Carmen McRae and Sarah Vaughan.

The musical fare is also vintage and consists of a veritable hit parade of jazz classics. "How High the Moon," "The Song Is You," "Lady Be Good," "Body and Soul," "It Don't Mean a Thing..."... And that's just the short list. "After Hours" is fun, it sings and swings, and it connects with music lovers of all ages.

"After Hours" is continuing its open-ended run with Thursday-Friday-Saturday shows at 7:00 and 9:00 p.m. on the H&R Block City Stage at Union Station, Main and Pershing Road. For reservations and related info call 816-460-2020.

-- Mike Metheny


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