Feelings on Napster?

If the money is THE ONLY, motivating factor, than i don't want that music!! Musician, writer...or any other REAL artist will make music, write...CREATE, regardless of their reward! They are creating, not to make You feel good! But for themselves! This atitude, as "Dekay" said, is felt in the current (sorry) state of literature, music, and if you will cinematography (movies) and much less in visual art (thank god). I just wanted to say that the true artist will create...because he HAS to!

Eldragon, Sure the arts are important. But without the patronage of someone (kings, nobles, modern consumers), artists would never be able to afford the supplies they need to create their art.

Wow! A lot of responses to read! Although I didn't read them all, there seem to be two basic positions: 1. Napster is good because it disseminates music and, despite the fact that artists and distributors are not paid, this stimulates interest in the music and probably leads to greater sales than if Napster did not exist. Therefore artists and distributors should embrace Napster. 2. Napster creates an environment where consumers don't pay artists and distributors for the music. Therefore, this may or may not lead to reduction or elimination of the artists desire to create. It may lead to this reduction since the artist is not being remunerated and, since this is capitalism, that is what we are all working for. Or it may not lead to this reduction because artists, as different from the rest of us, are compelled by their very nature to create whether they are remunerated or not. All of these arguments miss the point, in my opinion. Whether the nature of artists is or is not to create, as the author or performer of a song, book, play, computer program etc, you have certain rights of ownership as a result of your authorship. These include the right to sell some of those rights, to retain the rights, to share the work or to not share it. You are not under any obligation (moral or otherwise) to share it. There is no issue of the greater societal good here which says you must even share it, far less get paid for sharing it. This is the bottom line. As a computer software developer, I resent the idea that anyone could feel that they have the right to my work without first obtaining my permission. This resentment is apart from any money lost as a result. And any party who hides behind some argument that rather than stealing the property, he is just providing the vehicle for stealing the property, just would add the feeling that his arguments were ludicrous to that resentment.

Eldragon - I agree with your ideals. But, there are not that many talented individuals that are willing to sacrifice livelyhood for their art. Some may sacrifice for a while only to be eventualy worn down by the financial responsibilities that govern most of us. Many artists stop producing in order to find a more productive way of making a living for themselves and their families. There are of course artists that meet your requirements, but not a lot of them. I collect art. Nothing mainstream just basicaly anything that my wife and myself enjoy and can afford. One of the artists that I collect is your "kind" of artist. She refused a contract to "art up" the largest coffee house chain in the US (we all know their name) because she felt that the committment would somehow change what she did. She is still producing art as always, though without a great deal of financial success. She will be featured in Mary Randolph-Carter's ,author of "American Junk", new book that should be out soon. This will help expose her work, but she will never "sell out". I also collect Haitian art, much of which is motivated/inspired by extreme poverty and by dreams that will never be realized in the artist's lifetime. If you are not familiar with Haitian art, you should check it out, you will enjoy it. On the subject of music. A good friend of mine produced, composed and played on his own jazz/R&b album in the late 80's. He used his life's savings of aprox. $50,000.00 to pay for the musicians and production costs. He ran out of money at the point where final mixing and a few more solos were still needed. Alan Holdsworth donated the use of his home digital studio and even played on one or two of the cuts. We all know where Alan got the money to own his own studio and to afford the leisure time that helped complete the project. The album was "Silent Will" which ended up being one of the top ten jazz albums of the year. To my surprise I received a non-musical credit for donating the use of my car and apartment for three months while I walked to and from work. Without the money/donations the project would have never been completed. I am content in paying for music (of course I also purchase from BMG, thrift shops, yard sales etc.) and knowing that by doing so the music will always be there, and lots of it, whether it be new music or reissues of classics.

My point in this discussion is to try and point out a "legal" aspect to the Napster discussion. I think "legally" this is theft and it is wrong. My views are not a knock on artists and as Dekay pointed out with his example, artists do tend to CREATE first and think about money later. But at some point artists DO have to think about money or they will no longer be able TO do their art (provided they are not independently wealthy). So, to repeat again, I think Napster engages in an illeagal activity and actually hurts artists no help them.