Feelings on Napster?

Also, it's nice to be able to get that stuff that can't be bought in stores (or anywhere), if you catch my drift. Sure, the sonic quality of those is compromised, but so what? I'm a music lover, where my favorite music is concerned (the "audiophile" music is what you show your system off with, mostly)...and it's not my fault that they'll never release a live concert album...

Stealing is stealing.There is no justification for it. It,s that simple.

Nobody ever bitches about people trading tapes. This is the same as tape trading or loaning your cd's to your buddies, but done over the internet. I have bought more cd's this year than any other year because of Napster. I hear something I like and I go buy it. Out of the 3000 cd's I own I have definitely bought more than a few lemons. Now with Napster I can see what it's like before I spend my money on cd rack filler. Maybe I should write Napster and tell them to charge the record companies for the "advertising" that they provide. These big companies always cry foul and bitch about new technology until it helps them turn a profit. If they had their way we wouldn't own VCR's, cassette decks, minidiscs, DAT's, etc. It sure is funny how the movie industry cried like little babies until they started selling more tapes than they ever imagined, then they quit their crying. This is only my opinion, but give it some honest thought.

Right ON Grumpy!!

Hi Grumpy, I agree with what you say about swapping CD's between friends, etc. I think the idea here though is that Napster is making a profit. Someone's paying for the server space, the salaries AND their legal fees, right? I read a relevant article in today's paper about this very issue. It was a stance that the Greatful Dead has taken. We all know the Dead have always allowed people to record their concerts and have had one of the most "open" policies regarding music sharing of any established band. I think these brief comments may put the issue in more perspective: "Although the Dead officially remains neutral in the Napster controversy, the service violates a policy the band established a few months before the immensely popular Web site started last year. As digital audio files such as MP3 emerged as a viable format, the Dead reiterated its long-standing commitment to allowing fans to trade recordings of the band's 2,300 concerts. Under the April 1999 policy, though, the Dead declared that "no commercial gain may be sought by Web sites offering digital files of our music, whether through advertising, exploiting databases compiled from their traffic, or any other means." The reason is clear, why should a "service", such as Napster make a buck they didn't earn? They shoudn't, because it's wrong and it's theft. I think justice will prevail in the end but it's a shame Napster will be fighting it in court, paying the attorney's with money they never earned!!!!