Feelings on Napster?

I'm sorry, I digress...

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.