Chapter 15: I Found It On the Napster

Reno, Nevada

June 26, 1999

How did I let them talk me into this shit? Jake wondered, not for the first time but hopefully for the last, as he rose from the bride’s side of the makeshift aisle and walked in a dignified manner to the front of it, where a small canopy had been set up. He was dressed in one of his suits. It was a custom-tailored three-piece that had undoubtedly cost him more than the Yamashitos had spent on this entire wedding. And that was not an exaggeration. They were in the back yard of Jae Luc’s house in the hills just north of Reno—a venue that had cost nothing to rent. There were only thirty invited guests, all of whom had had to pay for their own travel and lodging to attend the ceremony. The reception would be held in the same back yard as the wedding. And there had been no money spent hiring someone to officiate the ceremony. Instead, they had talked Jake into doing it himself.

“Me?” Jake had asked, astounded when the request was made nearly three weeks before. “I can’t marry someone.”

“Actually, you can,” Jill told him. “You just have to apply at the Washoe County clerk’s office to be recognized as ordained. It’s really very simple.”

“But I’m not ordained,” Jake said. “I have never been to seminary school. I’m not a justice of the peace. I am a committed agnostic, as a matter of fact. I’m not qualified.”

“You don’t need to have a seminary degree or be a justice of the peace,” Jill told him. “You just have to attend a two-hour seminar, take a quiz, and then present your papers to the county clerk. You have to hurry though. The process takes two weeks to complete.”

“Seriously?” Jake asked. “You really want me to officiate your wedding? A long-haired freaky musician who is accused of snorting coke out of some chick’s butt crack?”

“You told me you didn’t do that,” Jill said. “And I believe you. I can think of no one I would rather have. After all, it was you that brought Jae and I together. Without your airplane, we never would have met.”

And so, Jake had agreed to officiate, and even felt honored to be asked. He was, of course, forced to wonder if the true reason was because Jill and Jae genuinely wanted Jake to officiate or because they were so freaking cheap that they could not pass up an opportunity to score the officiator for free. The Yamashitos had not offered to pay him for the duty or even to reimburse him for the expenses he incurred in getting himself ordained. The class itself had cost two hundred dollars and had required him to fly up to Reno to take it. The required background check had cost fifty dollars. The application for ordination itself had cost thirty dollars to process. Not that he would have accepted payment or reimbursement from them, but the offer would have been nice.

Jake reached the end of the aisle where a podium stood. There was a microphone connected to a speaker mounted atop it. He walked behind the podium and then turned to face the dearly beloved who were gathered here today. On the bride’s side Laura Yamashito, Jill’s mother, sat next to Laura Kingsley, the ‘reverend’s’ wife. Also present was Jill’s younger brother, Jeffrey, who was now the chief of police of Heritage, California (though his parents and sister were still ashamed to introduce him as such to others because he was not an accountant). His wife Maureen sat next to him, along with their two teenage children. In the row behind sat Celia and the Nerdlys. There were a few Yamashito family friends behind them, people that Jake had never met before. On the groom’s side were Do-Yun and Ji-Hye Luc, Jae’s father and mother respectively. Jae had three siblings, two boys and a girl, all of whom were younger than he. Two of them had spouses of their own and one had a girl toddler sitting on a lap. Behind the immediate family members were a few uncles, aunts, and cousins. Behind them were a few Caucasian work acquaintances of Jae, including his boss and his boss’s wife. Everyone was dressed very nicely. Everyone was now looking at Jake expectantly. He felt a little bit of stage-fright.

He pulled some index cards from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and placed them on the podium before him. They had bullet points to outline the little spiel he was about to give. There was a ten-knot wind blowing out of the Reno basin, however, and his notecards were promptly carried off across the yard. He made no attempt to chase them down.

“Well ... I guess I’ll just wing this then,” he told the guests with a shrug. Nobody laughed. He cleared his throat and then introduced himself, giving a brief synopsis of who he was and what his relationship to Jill soon-to-be-Luc was. He referred to her affectionately as “my twin” on two occasions, which again provoked not so much as a chuckle.

Tough crowd, he thought with a sigh. He then gave a nod to the early twenties cousin of Jae, who would be the DJ for the ceremony. He was not a professional DJ and had never even DJ’d before, but he was free so he got the gig. He pushed a button on a boom box and music began to play. That was the cue for Jae and his best man—an old college roommate who now worked for the city of Reno as a traffic engineer—to appear from the house and walk down the aisle to take their positions. Once they were in place, the DJ cousin (Jake could not remember his name) switched the song to an electric guitar version of Here Comes the Bride. Jake asked everyone to stand in honor of the bride and they all did so.

Jill appeared in her $200 wedding dress on the arm of her father, John Yamashito, who was wearing one of his office suits instead of a tuxedo. She wore the traditional veil and her dress was white. It was also quite modest. Jill did not believe in showing off her attributes, which was a pity because Jake had gotten an accidental look at her bare breasts once and thought they were actually quite nice. Not Celia Valdez nice, of course, but firm, rounded, and aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Pauline walked on the other side of Jill, serving as the accountant’s maid of honor by default as Jill did not really have any female friends—or even any male friends other than Jae and Jake. Pauline wore a turquoise dress that was not terribly becoming on her. One of the Yamashito relatives—Jill’s uncle, who was John’s younger brother—had been assigned the roll of official photographer. He snapped away with a Nikon.

When the bride and her small entourage reached the podium, Jake asked that everyone be seated. They did so. He then asked who gave this woman and John answered that he and her mother did. He kissed his daughter on the cheek and then returned to his seat. The uncle snapped a few more pictures as Pauline and the best man took their positions.

“All right then,” Jake said. “How about we marry these two?”

No one answered. No one smiled or chuckled. Jake suppressed another sigh and then went into his spiel the best he could. He talked of marriage and what it was all about. He talked of love and how it was a necessary part of any successful marriage. He talked of sharing the good times and the bad, of going through life as a team. He plagiarized heavily from the speech of Timmy Palakiko, the Hawaiian who had officiated at his and Laura’s wedding in Maui. He successfully managed to avoid using any profanity. He then asked for the rings. Pauline produced one for the groom and the best man produced one for the bride. Jake took them in his hands—their combined value was less than $200 and the Yamashito clan had bitched considerably about spending even that—and then spoke a bit about the rings and the symbolism of them, about how the gold lasted forever without wearing much, about the circles the rings formed and how that was an analogy to the marital relationship. This time he was plagiarizing from Rabbi Levenstein and his speech at the Nerdly nuptials. He then handed Jill’s ring to Jae and Jae’s ring to Jill.

“You may now recite your vows,” Jake told them. “Jae, you go first.”

Jae spoke briefly but from the heart. And his accent was so thick and the sound system so poor that hardly anyone understood what he was saying. Jill was moved by his words, however. She then recited her vows, promising to love him for as long as her mental capacities were intact, to honor him as a wife should honor a husband, and to establish a joint checking and savings account with him and take charge of the family finances for all time.

She’s gonna have that fuckin thermostat set for 85 in the summer and 62 in the winter, Jake prophesized sadly. And their kids are gonna get their clothes from the thrift store while Jae drives a two-year-old Honda Civic that gets good gas mileage. He felt a little pity for the poor slob.

“Thank you,” Jake said, “those were beautiful vows indeed. Now then, how about we get this show on the road here? Jae Luc, do you take this woman, Jill Yamashito, as your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, to love and to honor, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”

“I do,” Jae said with a smile, gazing at Jill’s face.

“Present her with the ring then,” Jake said.

He put the ring on Jill’s left ring finger and said, “With this ring, I thee wed.”

Jake then turned to Jill. “Jill Yamashito, do you take this man, Jae Luc, as your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, to love and to honor, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”

“I do,” Jill said, giving a smile of her own—an extreme rarity for Jill.

“Present him with the ring then,” Jake said.

She slid Jae’s band of gold on his left ring finger. “With this ring, I thee wed.”

“All right then,” Jake said with a nod. “The deal is done. By the power vested in me by the State of Nevada and the County of Washoe, and in view of the witnesses who will sign and attest to the legality of this ceremony, I now pronounce you husband and wife. Lay one on her, Jae.”

Jae lifted her veil and the two of them kissed a surprisingly passionate kiss. Jake was clearly able to see a little tongue action going on. The crowd stood and clapped for the newlyweds.

“Mazaltov!” Jake told them with a smile.

“Hey!” said Nerdly from the audience. “That’s my line!”

The KVA associates got out of there as quickly as they could get away with without hurting any feelings. A Yamashito wedding was not their idea of a good time. The only alcohol available was cheap wine and cheap beer at the no-host bar, which meant that one had to pay for the crappy alcohol and then tip the bartender (one of the Luc clan). The dinner was catered from a local Tex-Mex restaurant and was the biggest expense of the entire production. Jake tried the pork chili and, while it was quite tasty, it was also quite spicy and caused a little heartburn. He danced with Jill while the DJ played Twist and Shout and found that she was actually a pretty good dancer (she had taken classes in her undergrad days). He drank two glasses of the crappy wine and then danced a few dances with Laura and then Celia, both of whom were extraordinary dancers themselves. Once the cutting of the cake ceremony took place (it came from a local grocery store and had cost $250) they all began making their rounds and saying their goodbyes.

They escaped from the Reno hillside at 6:45 PM, the six of them piling into the Lincoln Navigator Jake had rented from the Reno-Tahoe airport when they had landed there earlier in the day. Jake took the wheel and drove them out of the hills to the Reno Hilton, a large off-strip Casino and Hotel that was quite close to the airport, close enough to see the planes coming and going from the windows of their suites. He parked in the garage and they all piled out, collecting their bags and heading for the hotel lobby. It took them less than ten minutes to check in. The Nerdlys had their own suite (they had to pay for theirs as they had not signed for any casino credit), as did the Kingsleys. Pauline and Celia were ostensibly sharing a suite but everyone knew where Celia was really going to be staying.

“What are the plans?” asked Pauline.

“I’m going to go change out of this suit and put on some jeans and a t-shirt,” Jake said. “After that, I’m going to the high-roller casino so I can play me some blackjack and have some alcohol that was not made in fucking Lodi. Who’s with me?”

“I’m with you,” Laura told him. “I can still taste that awful wine in my mouth.”

“I’m in,” said Celia. “I haven’t been in a casino since the TSF and I just signed out twenty thousand in credit. Might as well get started using it.”

“Gambling is such a fallacy,” Nerdly told her. “We’ll be staying in and checking on the status of our website and then probably engage in marital relations.”

“I made sure to pack the lubrication,” Sharon told him helpfully.

“You two are party animals,” Pauline told them. She then turned to the others. “Count me in for the casino. I’ll head there as soon as I get changed.”

Since it was a weekday evening, the high-roller portion of the casino on the third floor was not terribly crowded. There were a few older gentlemen sitting at the craps table and a few Asian couples in their late forties playing baccarat. Jake, Celia, Pauline, and Laura arrived together and made the bar their first stop, all of them ordering expensive drinks. They then settled in at one of the blackjack tables, where a male dealer in his late twenties sat patiently awaiting players. His name was Steve, and his nametag declared he was originally from Sacramento. Like all hotel staff assigned to the high roller area, he was personable and quite physically attractive. He recognized Jake and Celia immediately.

“It’s nice to meet all of you,” Steve told them after Laura and Pauline were introduced and their roles in Jake and Celia’s lives identified. “What brings you to Reno?”

“Our accountant got married here today,” Celia told him. “We’re going to stay the night and then fly back home tomorrow.”

“Married here in the hotel?” Steve asked.

“No,” Jake said. “That would have been too expensive for them. It was at a private residence.”

“Oh, I see,” Steve said, nodding wisely. “Anyway, how much can I pull for you?”

They each signed out ten thousand dollars in casino chips and began to play. Steve, for the most part, let them talk amongst themselves and concentrated on dealing the cards and collecting or paying the losings and winnings. This changed when Pauline brought up the latest update on the Napster situation. The week before, National Records had threatened to sue Napster if it did not take immediate steps to prevent the illegal sharing of copyrighted material on its service.

“Napster’s response was essentially a laugh in National’s face,” Pauline explained.

“I’m surprised they responded at all,” Jake said, taking a hit on fourteen because Steve was showing a ten of spades. He was dealt a two of clubs, prompting him to hit again, knowing he would likely bust. But luck was in his favor. Steve slapped down a four of diamonds, giving Jake a cool twenty.

“It was basically a form letter,” Pauline said. “I’m sure the other record companies have or soon will have copies of it as well.”

“What did it say?” asked Celia, who had stayed on an eighteen.

“The first paragraph said that, in the opinion of Napster’s lawyers, there was nothing actually illegal about people exchanging copyrighted MP3 files among themselves. They claim that the ‘fair use doctrine’ of the copyright act allows for CD owners to rip the tunes off the CDs and distribute them in this manner.”

“The fair use doctrine was intended for personal recordings only, wasn’t it?” asked Jake.

“That’s what it was intended for,” Pauline concurred. “It basically says that if I buy an Intemperance CD at the Walmart or in the record store, I have the right to make recordings of that CD if I want to. I can even give those recordings to my friends as long as I don’t charge for them.”

“But an MP3 file is not the same as making a cassette tape of the CD,” Laura protested. “It’s an entirely different monster. These MP3s can be downloaded endlessly and forever without any degradation of quality.”

“That is true,” Pauline agreed.

“And these MP3s are not just being given to friends,” Celia said, “they’re being disseminated far and wide to people who don’t know each other by means of the internet.”

“Yes,” Pauline said, “but no one is paying money for downloading them. Therefore, the argument goes, Napster is just an extension of the already ruled-upon and legally confirmed fair use doctrine and not a violation of copyright law. And that will remain true until someone files suit and a judge decides that passing MP3s around among strangers actually is copyright infringement.”

“Is National working on such a lawsuit?” asked Jake.

“They are exploring the possibilities,” Pauline said, “but the fair use doctrine is only the first paragraph of Napster’s response. The second is what Nerdly explained to us in the beginning. Napster argues that they only provide the peer-to-peer software to people. What people chose to do with that software is not Napster’s business or concern. It is not their obligation to police what the users do with the software. None of the MP3 files being traded pass through their server and they do not even have the means to monitor what files are being traded, let alone regulate it.”

“What’s the answer then?” asked Jake. “Is National going to have to go after every individual Napster user?”

“That is not really feasible,” Pauline said. “People are not signing up for this under their real names.”

“What about the IP addresses though?” Jake asked.

“Most of the users of Napster are college students,” Pauline said. “They’re accessing the files by using the on-campus high bandwidth internet servers. It would be pretty much impossible to identify who was who and get them to stop.”

This was when Steve spoke up. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t help but overhear what you’re talking about. What exactly is this Napster thing?”

“It’s kind of a thorn in our side right now,” Pauline told him. “It’s a peer-to-peer file sharing service that started up at the beginning of the month. It exists only for the exchange of MP3 music files.”

“I’ve heard of MP3 files,” Steve said carefully. “Are you saying that people are exchanging these files among themselves on this Napster website?”

“Not on the website itself,” Jake told him. “The Napster software connects the individual computers to each other and the users themselves exchange the files among themselves. It’s really big on college campuses, apparently.”

“But ... you don’t have to be a college student to use it?” Steve asked next.

“Not at all,” Pauline said. “Anyone can get the software and install it as long as you have a computer and the ability to connect to the web. If you just have dialup internet access instead of DSL, it’ll take a while to upload or download anything though.”

“How long?” asked Steve, who had dialup internet access in his apartment.

“Probably about an hour or so per tune,” Jake said with a shrug. “I was playing around with it the other day, just to see what it was all about, and it took me about ten minutes per tune with my DSL line.”

“Interesting,” Steve allowed, nodding as he thought about it.

The subject soon switched to other things. Steve went back to keeping his mouth mostly shut and his mind mostly on the game. But another part of his mind was very intrigued by what his famous players had been talking about. Steve was a lover of music. He loved it so much that he was trying to break into radio broadcasting for his career. He had been working for peanuts at KROC radio in Reno for the past two years now, working his way up from the guy who swept the floor to occasionally being able to fill in for the overnight on-air DJ shifts from midnight to six in the morning. His ambition was to eventually get one of the coveted morning slots on the weekdays so he would be able to quit the blackjack dealer gig (even though, as a high-roller dealer, he made pretty good money in tips and got lots of sex, from both males and females, when some high-roller took a fancy to him).

Jake Kingsley, his wife, his sister, and Celia Valdez played at his table for about an hour, all of them drinking like fish but tipping well, before deciding to move onto other things. None of them requested his services in other capacities, which was a pity as he would have gladly given those services to any or all of them. The four of them left the casino after thanking him for his time and giving him another round of tips.

He finished out his shift at 10:30 PM, cashed out all of his tip chips, and then drove home to his small apartment in east Sparks. He opened a bottle of wine, poured himself a glass, and then sat down in front of his computer and fired it up. He did not have to be back to work until 2:00 PM the next day so he did not have to start worrying about getting to bed until at least 3:00 AM.

He did a simple search using that new search engine called ‘Google’, which he had found provided much more relevant returns. Such was the case here. Napster’s website was the first suggestion that popped up. He clicked on the site and read the description and documentation. It was just as Jake and his sister had suggested: software that allowed users to exchange MP3 files among themselves. The site asked for no money for downloading the software. There was no mechanism in place for the individual users to collect or send money in exchange for the files. It seemed almost too good to be true.

He downloaded the installation file and then double clicked to get it to install. This process took the better part of twenty-five minutes, which allowed him to kill most of the bottle of wine while he waited. Once it was installed, he created his profile (he chose RadioDJ747 as his handle) and then connected his computer to the others on the network. He stared amazed at the thousands upon thousands of MP3 files available for download. All of it for free! He quickly learned how to find the fastest download files. But still, there were too many choices! What should he download first?

He decided to type in “Intemperance” in the search box to see how it narrowed down. He was a fan of Intemperance and already owned all of their CDs and even some vinyl, but he wanted to see how well the search engine worked by examining a known entity.

Almost a minute went by and then his screen began to populate with available downloads that had the word “Intemperance” in the file. Pretty much every song the band had ever recorded and put on a CD was there multiple times, everything from Descent into Nothing, their first album, to Lines on the Map, their last. He scrolled down the list, looking at the various file sizes and descriptors for the files. He did not plan to actually download any of the Intemp tunes because he already owned them. He was just looking to see how complete the collection was.

He was about to return to the search window and type in something that he actually did want to download when a group of the descriptors toward the bottom caught his eye.

INTEMPERANCE, Draw Down the Forces. From original Intemp demo tape!!! Never heard on an album before!!!

Draw down the Forces? Steve thought, starting to feel a little excited. From the original demo tape? Never heard on an album before? Could this really be true? He saw that there were dozens of copies of Draw Down the Forces available for download. And then he looked a little lower and saw there was another song listed as being from the original demo. This one was called Take, Don’t Give. Steve was enough of a fan to know that neither of those tunes had appeared on any Intemperance album and that those phrases had never actually been sung by Jake Kingsley on any of the Intemperance tunes commercially available.

Listed along with the track info was the size of the MP3 file. Steve knew that the larger the file, the higher the quality of the sound would be, but also that the time of download would increase. He chose the middle ground and picked a 128-kbps version of Draw Down the Forces. He clicked on it and waited for the magic to happen.

The magic eventually happened, but it took a while. It took the better part of three minutes just for the other computer to begin uploading the file to his computer. And then it only uploaded for about ten minutes (at an agonizingly slow rate) before the file in question simply disappeared from the screen and the download ceased to exist. Probably because the user on the other end had closed out the software. And so, he had to start all over. He picked another version of the file, another 128-kbps version. Once again, it took several minutes just to start to the process and then it downloaded at a snail’s pace. Well, Jake Kingsley had told him it would take an hour or so with dialup. Apparently he was right.

Once he decided that the download was probably not going to just disappear this time, he put the software in the background and then began searching for an MP3 player he could download, hopefully a free one. He did find such a thing. It was called Winamp and the basic version of it was free. If one wanted additional features, such as an equalizer, the ability to create and store complex playlists, then one had to pay some money. Steve did not pay. The free version was all he needed currently. He clicked the link and started the download. And, of course, the download came very slowly because he was already downloading an MP3 file. And the MP3 download slowed considerably as well.

In all, it took him an hour and fifteen minutes to download Draw Down the Forces. Once it was complete, he copied it from the download folder on the Napster file and into a new file he had just created on his hard drive, a file he simply called: Napster MP3s. Once it was securely in place, he installed the Winamp file on his computer. This took another ten minutes. Finally, he was able to give the song a listen—though it did take him another five minutes to figure out how to find the Napster MP3s file with the Winamp interface and get it playing.

He was not disappointed with what he heard. Though the sound quality was nowhere near what could be found on a CD, and though there was not even basic engineering on the tune, it was clearly a young Jake Kingsley singing on the track, clearly early-stage Matt Tisdale playing the lead guitar, and clearly Nerdly Archer playing the piano. The lyrics of the song were a bit dated, speaking of cold-war era concepts, but that did nothing but add authenticity to the tune. This really was an early demo recording of Intemperance. Holy fucking shit! And he had just gotten his hands on it for free! God bless fucking America!

He immediately went back to the Napster software and clicked on one of the versions of the other demo tune that was available: Take, Don’t Give. This time he went through three frustrating mishaps of connection. The first time, the download simply did not start, just kept spinning in the queue endlessly for more than five minutes. The second time, the download started after about two minutes of queue spinning, but then abruptly disappeared about ten minutes in. The third one turned out to be another endless queue spinner. The fourth, however, seemed to be working. The little download meter continued to grow at a slow but steady rate.

Satisfied, he put Napster in the background again and decided to look at some porn and then jack off. Of course, he could not download any new porn since that would slow the download rate of the Napster download, but fortunately, he had a large collection of video and still files on his hard drive just for such occasions. That killed about twenty-five minutes, which, after cleaning up and washing the lube off his hands, meant that the download meter was still only about halfway done. He sighed and found something else to do for another thirty-five minutes.

He found it worth the wait once he listened to Take, Don’t Give. Once again, it was classic early Intemp, but something that had never been heard before. The Matt Tisdale guitar solo was impressive, as was the primary riff. The lyrics were classic Tisdale as well. Again, there was that lack of basic engineering on the tune, but again, that just added to the sense of authenticity.

The world needs to hear this music, he thought to himself. And not just over a pair of computer speakers.

He used one of his computer programs to decompress the two MP3 files and then write them to a CD. He had a shift at the radio station the next Sunday, not as the DJ, but as the night tech in charge of advertisement spots. The station’s program director would be coming into work just as Steve would be leaving. He wanted to give him the CDs and see if maybe he might be interested in letting all of Reno give them a listen as well.

On the night of June 30, the following Wednesday, Jake, Laura, and Celia all came trapsing back to Kingsley Manor after spending the better part of an hour in the hot tub out on the edge of the cliff. All of them were wearing robes with nothing on beneath. Jake was carrying an empty Merlot bottle in his hand. All three were carrying empty wine glasses. It was just past ten o’clock. Almost time for bed.