Feelings on Napster?

First, I'm pretty impressed with the quality of the posts here...most of them anyway. I think we agree on more than we disagree on. Secondly, I want to be clear that, as I use a modem for downloads-- taking years per song, I certainly do not avail myself of Napster all that often. Thus,with the demise of Napster, it's not the loss of free music that I lament so much as the further empowering of corporate domination of music, art, films..etc. Clearly art and music will survive, but commercialization has had and will have inevitable detrimental ramnifications for American culture (and don't even tell me that there are no ramnifications) which will in turn influence the popular arts. A downward spiral. We all agree that taking advantage of an artist's work without his consent is incorrect and wrong. So how do we solve the problem? If it goes before a court, it is a case of yes or no. However, the third option would have been not to hear the case at all. Find a solution outside the courts. Clearly, the music industry has not taken advantage of technologies available to prevent this phenonmenon. There are many, many answers. Why? In fact, the most drastic solution is to establish a precedent of regulating the internet. Why do this? Because, there is clearly more at stake and they want to sew up the issue now, while it's still early. So the questions regarding Napster are not unrelated, just a subset of much larger long term issues. Overall, I think we agree on the problems, it's the solutions that we are in disagreement about.

This is in response to Issabre's comment "Thus, with the demise of Napster, it's not the loss of free music that I lament so much as the further empowering of corporate domination of music, art, films..etc." It is not a matter of "empowerment." IMO, this is not about corporations and domination. This is a property rights issue. Either you own something or you don't. The owner of something has specific rights and it is improper to assume that because there is a new medium that those rights are somehow diminished. If someone moves to a new house does that mean they have fewer rights to privacy and protection of their property? No, their rights are generally sustained and remain essentially the same. A good excercise is to put yourself in the other fellow's shoes. What if it were your property being given away without your permission? What if it were your livelihood being jeapordized? Don't just think of it in terms of big dollar players. That's just who is getting the press right now. This ultimately effects all of us in many ways and with respect to a wide variety of media. In some ways the corporate types are doing us a favor (no, not in all ways) and it's about time.

Gridlock has it right, this isn't China where you copy anything you want for free. Issabre if you want to see how something sounds every large CD internet srore offers "real audio" sound samples of tracks from CDs they sell, this gives you idea of sound or style. Your argument of free unlimited sampling because maybe you will buy a CD is like saying you can use a "cable black box" and watch all the pay channels for free, just to see if you like it. Napster is piracy of copyrited material, and will be shut down very soon unless they pay artists for use of their material, regards Sam

It's not a matter of "soon", it's already happened. Do you not watch the news broadcasts? There are many others that will and are filling the Napster vacuum, but the government will obviously whittle the largest of them down also, over time...................I think there are other things going on in the USA that are more important than free music on the internet.....................Issabre, your guy claims he invented the internet, so "if" he's elected, maybe he'll solve all that worries you, heh heh heh.

Do you not watch the news? Napster was allowed to stay up and running on appeal as of late Friday afternoon. It wiil probably be in service until at least September when it goes to court again.