Feelings on Napster?

Kacz: You said it prefectly - and that's why the record companies had better stop complaining and find a way to deal with it. How about cutting the prices of new CDs instead of raising them? Another method could be on-line direct sales. There's a jazz label, OkkaDisc, which has their entire catalog available on-line and way cheaper than at any store or on-line vendor. But that's just wishful thinking - they'll just raise prices and come with some godawful watermarking scheme - less sound, more money.

I agree Ralph, and btw, what did you think of my response to Pghedge?

Carl: Your response was a bit over the top and you may even be correct. The music industry has survived plenty of "scares" - radio broadcast, MTV, home taping, live taping, etc. I've heard some really poor sounding live recordings that only a true fan would want to hear, let alone own. And I'm sure that there's plenty garbage out there on Napster that I wouldn't download, let alone buy. And what the heck are we doing in this tread discussing such a lo-fi format while the powers that be are busy gearing up for yet another format war (SACD vs. DVD Audio) and another round of us replacing all our Beatles recordings.

Ralph: Oh, I see, so you don't use Napster much at all, then? WHY ARE YOU COMMMENTING HERE, IF YOU HAVE LITTLE EXPERIENCE WITH IT? I enjoy using it, and could give a rat's keester about the "format wars". There's no "war", because NONE of them will gain wide acceptance as long as the general public can still buy CD's for less $, and download music for free off the internet. And, my above response was NOT over the top at all, thank ya very much...it was perfectly in keeping with who I was responding to. Good day, and have fun fighting your little format war...the general populace doesn't care, and we all know what happens to formats that are only supported by those handfuls of audiophiles in the world (they die). How many new release Quadrophonic LP titles have you bought lately? "It's about the music, and not gadgets"...and "Keep it real".....Carl

Carl: you gotta learn to go just a little bit easier. I may not have much experience with Napster - but then again it's not all that complicated or difficult to learn and use. And yes, I have based my comments on my "limited" experience. So what. I'm still entitled to an opinion. Plus you missed the point of my comment about another "format war". It was meant as a joke about the music industry crying the blues while they are planning for yet another super-duper profit making venture. And they did make huge profits when they introduced CDs (with "prefect sound forever") and had everyone replacing all their LPs. However, I do agree with you that with the mp3's and CD-R's it's going to be much harder for the music industry to launch their next improvement on prefection.