Free. The simple sound of the word leaves college students salivating like Pavlov’s dog after the ring of a bell. Free. It doesn’t matter what. Free food, free movies, free ice buckets, free music.

Shawn Fanning, founder of the Inernet craze Napster, knows how good free can be, or then again maybe he’s realizing that not everything in life can be free and sometimes it is just too good to be true.

Napster has been writing history since it’s creation, but it’s biggest chapter was written this summer when the company went to trial.

As a 19 year-old and former student of Northeastern Univeristy, Fanning is the creator of the program that has the entertainment industry in turmoil.

Fanning dropped out of school his freshman year to finish writing the computer programming for Napster, a downloadable software that enables people to exchange music stored on eac other’s computers. It sounds great, doesn’t it?

Unfortunate, the record labels didn’t think so. Just weeks before Napster’s first birthday on Dec. 7, 1999, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sued Napster for copyright infringement and asked for $100,000 in damages everytime a song was downloaded.

After the RIAA suit was filled, universities across the nation began to ban Napster from their campuses. The heavy student use associated with the program overloaded their computer systems.

Student’s pleaded with administrators to remove the Napster bands and soon Napster was online again in the dorms.

On April 13, 2000, Metallica joined RIAA in the fight to bring down the giant Napster had become by suing Napster and three universities, Yale University, University of Southern Californina, and Indiana University for copyright infringement.

Napster responded to Metallica’s legal voice by removing more than 300,000 members for having downloaded Metallica tracks.

At the end of July, Napster faced extinction in the courtroom. After presiding U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel rejected all of the Napster’s attorneys’ arguements and ruled in favor of the prosecution, Napster was ordered on July 26, 2000 to cease swapping of copyrighted material at midnight on July 28th.

Napster immediately filed for apeal in the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who granted the company an emergency stay hours before they would have had to shut down.

As it now stands, Napster and the RIAA will begin a series of settlement talks. Napster’s brief is due Aug. 18 and the RIAA is scheduled to deliver it’s response to the 9th Circuit Sept. 8th. Napster will then have until the 12th of September to respond to RIAA’s filing.

Yes, Napster is still functioning. Music is being downloaded and songs are being shared by members worldwide, but no one knows for how much longer.

The only thing that is known is this: regardless of whether or not Napster remains in existance some middleground must be reached between record labels and companies like Napster.

When cassette and video tapes first appeared on the market, the industry responded in a similiar fashion arguing that the ability and ease at which consumers could copy and share their products would hurt the industry economically. They were wrong then, perhaps they are wrong now.

People still bought tapes, as evident by collections in boxes in our parent’s basement’s. They still bought movies. Who doesn’t own an original copy of their favorite movie?

The 1992 Audio Home Recording Act determined that people were free to share copied version of music and videos with their friends and family. This act has been one of Napster’s main arguements against the RIAA.

The Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) in the meantime has been working to create a digital “watermark” that would enable musicians to prevent unauthorized copying. New technology, such as the watermark is needed to find a compromise between the record labels and the current means of exchange that is here to stay.

While Napster is among the firsts, it is no longer the sole music exchange available on the Internet. New sites like Napster are emerging as quickly as the RIAA can file suit against them. They are multiplying like bacteria in a digital petri dish and no antibiotic exists to elimnate them. As nature exmplifies, a symbiotic relation is the only solution.

Among Napster’s clones are Gnutella, Freenet, Imesh, Scour and Aimster. Gnutella allows for users to share any type of digital file. However, unlike Napster there is no third party which mediates the exchange. Individuals swap files directly leaving the individuals not Gnutella responsible for obeying the law. Freenet employs an encryption which enables its users to remain hidden from record companies.

Imesh is an Israeli based company that facilitates exchanges between it’s members. Imesh requests that it’s users take on the responsibility for complying with the law. Scour is another Napster twin that is begining to share the same fate after being sued by the RIAA.

Aimster is an AOL creation the alows AOL instant messenger users to share files with friends. The program was developed by AOL’s Winamp music unit but has since been removed from AOL’s site.

So while the power’s that be struggle to reach a compromise or Napster get’s officialy shut down, everything appears to have gone unchange. Millions of users still utilize the program to tap into a vast library of digital files.

Tom Hanley the Student Computer Coordinator of Saint Louis University urges students to take responsibility for determining their stance on Napster as well as monitoring their use of the band width.

The band width refers to the link between individual computers and the Internet and the information capacity between them. While the university has no intentions of blocking students from anything available on the Internet, they are prepared to disconnect those who fail to take responsibility on for themselves.

As Napster’s continuing existance stood trial, thousand of users were downloading digital files at exponential rates. Members, fearing the worst, were found at their computers during every free moment they could manage.

Regardless, Napster’s fate will land these proceedings as a landmark case of the 21st Century but in the meantime, let the music play on.