Kirk Hiner's

"When thinking differently just isn't different enough."

Robin Hood: Prince of MP3s
or, If You Build It, Make Them Pay to Come

By Kirk Hiner

This weekend, I watched an excellent, excellent football game. I didn't watch it on TV, though. Being a Seattle Seahawks fan living near Akron, Ohio, I don't usually get that luxury. Instead, I watched it on my computer.

Actually, that's not even true. I didn't so much watch the game as I watched two little football helmets move across a football field graphic. The screen would refresh every 120 seconds, letting me know what has transpired...although, starting about midway through the fourth quarter, I was manually refreshing it about every ten seconds.

This is part of the GameCenter feature at NFL.com. It's handy, I suppose—a better alternative to the score ticker on any of the TV stations broadcasting a game, and certainly better than sitting at Damon's Grill for 3 1/2 hours listening to thirty people swearing at five TVs at once—but it's not better than listening to a radio broadcast of the game, which, until this year, I was able to do.

Clear back in 1997, I was able to hop onto the Seahawks' website and listen to live radio broadcasts of the game. Anyone who's done this knows how exciting it can be, mainly because the commentators are local and are allowed to be biased and show enthusiasm. Great fun. A few years back, though, the radio broadcasts starting showing up at NFL.com. Oddly, I could never get them to work there (didn't support the Mac OS), but I could still gain access through the Seahawks website. This year? Not even that. The broadcasts are gone from seahawks.com altogether. They're not even available from the website of the radio station that covers the game. Nope, the only place to hear my team is at NFL.com, and they're now charging for the service.

They call it Field Pass, and they charge $9.95 a month for it, or $34.95 for the season. Not too pricey, I suppose, but why am I being charged at all? NFL.com states that this is an expensive service and that they need money in order to maintain it. Mm hmm. And Shaun Alexander needs to hold a bake sale just to buy his new baby girl a pair of shoes. If NFL.com can't afford to maintain the service, why not just turn it all back over to the team's individual website (still part of the NFL network, yes, but easier to maintain with a locally dedicated team) or at least back to the local radio station?

And why are many of the game highlights only available to Field Pass subscribers?

And why is it being broadcast in RealAudio, which has always sounded really bad and has provided no hope for improvement in five years?

It's all pretty simple. Because this is the internet, and the internet is about making money. I understand this, which is perhaps why I wasn't upset—or even surprised—to see that what could easily be and what should be free is now a pay service. Perhaps I'm jaded, but I'm never surprised when people start demanding money for things. If anything, I'm more surprised when they don't.

A few examples. First, www.freemerchant.com. This is a website that offers online shopping capabilities to companies that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford such a service. Back in the late 90s, the company for which I work started setting up our clients with this service, which was free at the time. That worried us. If it was free, how would they make money? How could they possibly continue to provide the service, and what would happen to our clients' stores when they pulled the plug? Luckily, they didn't pull the plug, they started charging a monthly fee. We were relieved, and do you know what? Not one client complained when they had to start paying.

And how about Mac.com? I mean, really, people, despite what Apple may (or may not have) said, did anyone honestly believe a service that handy would remain free? Bait and switch? Perhaps, but who said we had to go for the bait? Again, I may be jaded, but if I see a fat, fresh juicy worm wiggling on a hook in an otherwise polluted, barren stream, I'm going to look long and hard for the hook and string before taking a bite.

Then, of course, there's the RIAA. What a lovely bunch of folks these people are, right? Sticking with the fish analogy for a moment, they never even bothered to dig up any bait. So, since they can't fish, they're just going to drain the river.

I've read the stories about them suing 12-year-old girls, senior citizens, a couple nuns, I think, and I'm pretty sure they're even suing David Geffen, and it makes me wish I was someone important (I use "important" as the RIAA would use the term, meaning someone who makes them money) so I could stand up and say, "You people are ignorant morons who are less pleasant than that crusty layer of filth that covers the cesspool of your pusillanimous lives," and have the statement matter.

On the other hand (and prepare yourselves for this, all you Kazaa cads) downloading songs off the Internet is stealing. Yes, you're stealing from fat, corrupt business execs who have been stealing from the very artists they claim to be protecting ever since the advent of the recording contract, but it's stealing nonetheless. You're taking a product for which most people are paying, and you're taking it for free. I'm not saying kids and adults who download thousands of songs off the internet deserve million dollar lawsuits, but they certainly shouldn't act surprised when those lawsuits come.

And yet...wait a minute. Robin Hood was a thief, right? He stole from the rich and gave to the poor, which is essentially what all those file sharing websites are doing, yet Robin Hood is regarded as a hero! A legend! Of course, in the story, Robin had to actually hold-up and rob the noblemen, then distribute the bounty on his own. He was a man of action, unlike all these people who sit at their computers and just download songs. Where's the adventure in that? Where's the romance? I say, if you're going to steal music, do it right; shoplift from the local record store. Better yet, hijack the truck transporting the CDs to the local Best Buy. Ride up on your horse, leap onto the trailer, cut the baby open and toss those CDs onto the highway!

Or...no, wait! Kidnap the artists and force them to stage mini-concerts for your friends and neighbors. Think of how romantic it would be if you invite your girlfriend over for dinner, and who's in the corner singing, but Blue Oyster Cult?! "Did you enjoy the chicken marsala, dear? While I pour us some more wine, here's B.O.C. singing their smash hit 'She's As Beautiful As A Foot.' "

So, what's the absurd notion in all of this? Only that, if Robin Hood were alive today...and real...he may still be inclined to steal from the rich and give to the poor, but he'd probably be owned by some corporation somewhere and would charge $9.95 a month for his services.

And so it goes, this thing called business. Although I'm frequently saddened and disillusioned by the lies corporations spread in an effort to make a couple more million a year, I can't say I'm ever surprised. That makes it easier to take. And do you know what? I kind of hope the RIAA wins every lawsuit they've laid out and completely puts an end to music sharing of all forms. This way, when CD sales are still plummeting by billions of dollars a year and they no longer have some cheap excuse upon which they can fall, they'll have to figure out what the real problem is.

I have some ideas, Mr. Bainwol, if you want to hear them.

By that point, though, I'll no longer be paying attention. There's simply too much good independent music out there now (for example...) to care about who Madonna's kissing now in a sad and desperate attempt to stay in the headlines). Plus, CDs from independent artists tend to be cheaper. Maybe I'll take the money saved and invest it in something else to kill my time...like the NFL's Field Pass. Nah, that's a rip-off, too.

I know, I'll buy a copy of Robin Hood and read of a make-believe world in which the corrupt do get their come-uppance, the voice of the people doesn't get suppressed with lawsuits and scare tactics, and heroes rise up to let us know that—despite what the U.S. government and big business tells us—it is okay for a man to dress in bright green...every single day of his life.

Go Hawks!

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