When you're already an insider it's easy to catch the industry buzz. And when you keep an ear to the ground you're primed to track the dirt on the increasingly volatile music scene. The scene today is wrought with rampant mudslinging, accusations of high crimes, and a latent distrust of both digital-music web sites and the music industry. No one and nothing is sacred, everything is undecided, and many agree that the future of the Music Industry is up for grabs. At the core of this implosion are two key players: Napster and MP3.com.

Napster bad boy, Sean Fanning.

When Shawn Fanning first coded Napster, he never anticipated the unrest he would generate. Metallica is enraged, claiming its record sales are in jeopardy (even though quarter-earning figures have never been released) and maintaining that piracy is rampant through college campuses. In the beginning, USC, the University of Indiana, and Yale University all boasted Napster support, citing anticensorship clauses and students' right to free choice. However, now both Yale and Indiana University have banned Napster from their university servers in response to Metallica's increasing litigation threat. Supposedly, the administration believes that participants might suffer legal action should Napster be found guilty of piracy charges. Metallica has also garnered the trust of other bands in its crusade against the greater college community. Offspring, Smashing Pumpkins, and the Goo Goo Dolls have stated that they will file suits similar to Metallica's. Interesting how quickly institutional support crumbles away at the first signs of an organized paper war. Kudos to Yale for leading that retreat.

Metallica's unamused Lars Ulrich.

With an ironic twist on the situation, paylars.com, a fan site run by August Nelson Inc., has begun a collection to compensate Metallica for the revenues it has lost to Napster. The site intends to present a check to Lars Ulrich when it has garnered a sufficient revenue base. In any event, Metallica is sure to look compromised when the band members are either a) made too look needy, or b) presented with a check for $5 and made to look like fools. Though many insiders believe that paylars.com may be a well-orchestrated scam, we'll have to see what cards fall next week.

Andre Young (known as Dr. Dre) is suing Napster as well. Recent reports leaked that the Doctor was astonished to see on Napster's servers every song he's ever recorded. In response, Dr. Dre issued an ultimatum earlier this week: Napster must remove all of his songs from its servers or he will sue in line with Metallica's litigation. Much to his chagrin, Napster CEO Eileen Richardson stated that Napster would only pull off Dre's tracks if he could identify which Napster users were perpetrating the songs in question. Needless to say, Dr. Dre's attorney was not amused with Napster's ornery retort and acknowledged that identifying every guilty user would be impossible. Further, Napster maintains that as a company it hosts no songs, copyrighted or otherwise, as Napster consists of a service that points users to songs on other computers and not on a central server. But with a karmic timeliness Lucasfilm Ltd. has announced that it is suing Dr. Dre for illegally using the trademarked THX "Deep Note" sound in the intro of his new album, Dr. Dre 2001. Regardless of the Lucasfilm Ltd. outcome, this turn of events proves poignant to Napster sympathizers around the globe.

The ever-watchful RIAA.

MP3.com has recently announced that it will institute a million dollar "Payback for Playback" program to compensate artists on its site. Under this plan, artists will receive reimbursement based on the number of listens their songs receive. Many are skeptical as to the payment formula behind this program, and likewise many believe that My.MP3.com is flawed at the foundation. Critics assert that pirated and burned CDs are just as capable of being "beamed" by MP3.com's software. MP3.com is currently involved in lawsuits with the RIAA, and MP3.com representatives are remarkable chipper in interviews and press releases. They feel that the My.MP3.com service wholly abides by the fair-use law, and it is in no way violating any preexisting copyrights.

But the buzz on the street is about the bigger picture. If the concern is piracy, then why aren't bands suing Sony, Dennon, Phillips, and Panasonic? CD burner manufacturers are surely contributing to the illegal reproduction of audio files, and perhaps to a greater degree than MP3 exchangers. At least Napster is confined to the savvy computer-capable population only, and one can easily sell pirated CDs on the street for high profit. The principle of the matter comes into serious question as these lawsuits develop.

Until next week, I'm Frank Bourbon and I'm hard on the street.

Frank Bourbon is always hard on the street -- digging through the trash, uncovering the dirt, and sifting through the music industry debris. To add your dirt to the pile, shoot him an e-mail at frank_bourbon@gamespot.com.

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