MP3 won't stop music industry. (Industry Trend or Event) Joanna Pearlstein.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1998 Mac Publishing L.L.C.

There's a folder on my hard drive that I probably shouldn't tell the lawyers about. The 20 items in that folder take up about 75 Mbytes, and they're illegal. They're pirated music in the MPEG Audio Layer 3 format, commonly called MP3.

MP3 is gaining popularity among users who like to listen to music on their computers; files are available on illicit Web sites (until they're shut down), and their content is diverse. My collection, for example, includes songs by Louis Prima, Adam Sandler, the Village People and the Spice Girls.

MP3 files often violate artists' copyrights, and I agree that's a bad thing. The Recording Industry Association of America is suing Diamond Multimedia Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif., for the company's new Rio PMP300 device, which can store and play back 60 minutes of MP3 files. The RIAA alleges that the Rio "encourages consumers to infringe the rights of artists by trafficking in unlicensed music recordings on the Internet," according to the group's press release. The RIAA wants Diamond to add a security mechanism to the Rio.

Let's consider this: Are you really going to spend $200 on a device that plays back the files you find hidden on the Internet when you could buy a portable CD player for $80? I'm not. MP3 won't replace my home audio system or the music equipment in my office. I'm not going to buy fewer CDs because of MP3 -- and even if I did, it wouldn't be Diamond's fault.

Fact is, every new technology displaces older methods of production, but the market adapts. Many people worried, for example, that distributing stock images on the Internet would be a copyright fiasco. I know that image copyrights are violated regularly, but responsible companies do the right thing. Many stock photography houses have successfully put their businesses on the Web and created a new market by doing so.

Diamond isn't partnering with people running illegal MP3 servers. Instead, it's working with organizations such as MP3.com (www.mp3.com), a Web site that distributes MP3 files and players. You'd be hard-pressed to find a file violating a big record company's copyright on MP3.com. When I browsed the site recently, I didn't find a single band I'd heard of. That means the site is providing exposure for lesser-known artists who probably wouldn't get a shot at a record company contract. To me, that's what MP3 is about: giving up-and-coming recording artists an inexpensive way to promote their work on the Web.

MP3's compression level and sound quality make it a good technology. The threat of copyright violation doesn't mean we should throw the baby out with the proverbial bath water.