There are a lot of good points already made...but a couple of things to think about. The bubble has burst! It's the record companies who feel that they have the most to loose with Napster...that's why they are paying magabucks to shut it down. They can shut it down in the US, but then it will just move offshore where US laws do not apply. They need to find a way to deal with it...shutting it down is only temporary. Ever wonder why you pay less for a cassette than a CD of the same music?...when the cassette shell actually costs more that the CD blank. Record companies have been ripping off the general public...and the artists for decades. They toss pennies at the artists and make gastly steep profits on per unit sales. The artists need to wake up and form their own businesses...invent a way to transmit CD or SACD quality, digitally, over the net and sell their product directly to consumers over the internet for $2.00 an album,instead of taking a buck a copy from the record companies. The only way to deal with the technology of the 21st century is to make the product so cheap to buy that no one will want to pirate it or "trade files" ...they will just go buy the product...of course that will mean that the record companies will have to sell the product for what it's worth...for the first time in history! Hold tight...we soon will be trading files for software and anything else that can be digitized. Everyone selling anything digital will have to sell it cheap enough to make the general public want to have their own, origional copy. This again means that Mr. Gates will have to sell his Office 2000 suite for $20 to $25 bucks a pop and only make 2-300% profit per unit instead of the gazillion percent profit he now makes on every copy. Sorry, but the laws of supply and demand will still rule the digital world. As long as the price is high...most folks will "make do" with the crappy, compressed, "Napster" like quality (but still better than that cassette that Columbia is still willing to sell you for $7.98) that they can get for free...instead of buying the real deal.
Feelings on Napster?
Hi, Since this is in part a forum about music, I'll put this statement and question on the table. In the past few months, I've begun to use Napster online. I'll look through the forum for reccomendations on good albums and tracks, then I'll download it on Napster, take a listen and, if I like it, purchase the album. My opinion is that Napster is really opening up accessibility to music for alot of people, allowing them to try new things that before they wouldn't have access to or simply wouldn't be prepared to invest in. It's helped expand my own horizons I know and I think it's good for music overall. Any opinions?