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?
issabre
Even if Napster goes under, people can rip from CD's, DeCSS already means DVD's are able to be ripped. Getting digital data from a digital format is pretty much a given. Once that happens they can be sent or posted on places like FTP's. So even if there's no more Napster, there will always be message boards and FTP's where people can swap these crappy 10:1 - or worse - compressions. So even if you agree the artists have all the rights in the world, it appears as though they're unenforceable.
CRAP. I can't log on to NAPSTER. Did they already get closed down or are they just BOGGED down by frantic teenagers trying to get every song they can uncertain of napsters FUTURE? Wahooooo. Glad I got that awsome METALLICA song NO LEAF CLOVER just in time. Great song and great ORCHASTRA work. Not the biggest fan but this song is awsome.
Issabre: I think I see where you're coming from, but I think you're off base.

You can have access to the internet for free, you can find content for free, but access to property you don't own for free is not the pervue of the internet.

The internet is a medium for distribution of information. Whether it be printed, or multimedia.

However, it's all copyrighted. Just because you see an image on a web page, doesn't mean you can (legally) download it and place it on your own site. Someone else created that image and owns it (and can control its use).

The same goes for music. Someone illegally copying a CD to the internet does not make it free. Rights are rights. Whether the label or the artist owns the music is irrelevant. The point is that the people who upload these MP3s do not and everyone downloading them are stealing.

Trying to argue from any other stance is sophistry or another (unrelated) argument.

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.