"Besides IUMA." is supposed to be "Besided emusic (http://www.emusic.com), there's also sites as IUMA (http://www.iuma.com)."

Here's the thing that seems to get overlooked:

If Shawn (Napster) had made ihs program and just released it then that would have been one thing. We could then debate the evils of piracy or the evils of the record companies or whatever.

But Napster tried to turn his program into a get rich quick (for himself) scheme. Napster was a for profit corporation. A company who hoped to profit because their program made it easy for users to loot the intellectual property of others.

To me, it just serves as yet another example of terrible ethical behavior being rewarded by the media and society. The only good thing is that at least here, justice actually came into play and Napster ended up going out of business.

It seems that when you set up a company for the sole purpose to make money by ripping other peoples property off, it has to be wrong. The artis's here get upset when other people take their skins and redoing or reuse them and put there name on it and no one is making money.UM! Stealing is stealing. They did it so I can do it isn't a very good argument. I just don't buy music much anymore.

ugh, my typing *demands* an edit feature... where is the supply? you could limit it to ten minutes or whatever...

Oops!... I did it again! Let's try this...
Frogboy: and somehow making an app that millions of people want to use isn't fundamental economics? How can you fault a natural law that you, yourself profit from? He saw a demand, and offered a supply. What MessiahWWKD doesn't see is that economic truths are *as natural* as pink monky asses; they are just as sublimated and just as instictual. They are why communism failed, and we still thrive. If Mr Fanning hadn't chose to make Napster, someone else would have answered the call. Demand is *always* answered.
Although it might be true that people would rather steal something than pay for it, I see nothing in the economic law about that being a good thing. If people stopped paying for music, the only new music that'd be shared would be music by artists who simply do it for the love of music and will make the sacrifices necessary to make music (i.e. money and time). Notice how we never hear of those people? Even pirates who hate everything and anything about the RIAA seem to be more interested in record industry artists than independent ones. Even on IUMA(http://www.iuma.com), the artists do want people to purchase their CDs. As for demand, there's demand for many things, including child pornography. Does that mean that one shouldn't try to stop the activity simply because people do it?
If millions of people walked out without paying at wal-mart tomorrow, there would be nothing you *could* do about it, and the government would find someway to blame wal-mart within minutes. These are voters, tax-payers, and the reason the entertainment industry and the internet exists. You can't jail them all... heck, you really can't even make them mad for long... The entertainment industry is thriving amidst unchecked file sharing, even having record breaking years.
If millions of people started to break the speed limit tomorrow, there would be nothing you could do about it. After all, these are voters, tax-payers, and the reason the entertainment industry and the internet exists. You can't jail them all. Therefore, the only solution is to ban all speed limits and allow people to drive as quickly as they desire.
Is this worth the destruction of our freedom? Is this worth creating precendents that can be used to shamelessly invade our privacy with little more than MP3 sharing as an excuse?
Nobody here is saying that our privacy should be sacrificed to keep piracy down. In fact, I believe it'd be better to attack the one who creates the facilities for piracy, such as Napster. Besides, as KaZaA (http://www.kazaa.com) proves, P2P file-sharing services don't care about your privacy.
After more of these laws pass, *evil* people will be able to abuse them to do far worse than ripping mp3s.
People like to compare Napster and company to a hydra that grows new heads after one is destroyed, but from what I see, it's more like a boulder. When Napster existed, the boulder was a mountain. When Napster was destroyed, the boulder split into several pieces. It still exists, but rather than in one large form, it is in many smaller forms. If this process is continued, eventually the pieces could become small enough that it won't be much different in scale than copying tapes for friends.

paxx: When downlaoding songs for free, you may be indeed robbing the artists out of some revenue, but mainly you are ripping organised crime (record labels) out of a few dirty dollars. Give me the option to download songs and directly pay the artists and I'll do it in a minute.
MessiahWWKD: When you purchase a CD, an artist receives around 10 cents. When you download a CD off Napster, an artist receives nothing. I don't see how giving an artist nothing is more moral than giving an artist ten cents as record companies do. In fact, some might say that it's worse, especially since the artist signed the contract with the record company, yet made no agreement with the pirates. If an artist doesn't want any revenue to belong to the record company, they can always be independent. Of course, they will have to do the packaging, the advertising, the production themselves. Perhaps record companies actually do provide a service for the artists.

bakerstreet- I never put down my opinion down on this thread and the napster thing. I mearly stated the opinion of another.

I'am sure nobody here thinks that I'am a saint and if they do they'd better have their head examined. Stealing is stealing no matter on what scale. It all comes down to what you can justify to yourself. I hate MS. I have 2 machines and in the past I'd buy one OS and load it on both machines. With XP you cannot unless you hack in to it or get a bootleg copy. I don't know if it was right to load it on 2 machines but my justification was they are mine and I paid for the software. It's like taking the hard drive out of one machine and putting it into the other. It's mine and I will do with it like I want. I don't go looking for bootleg copies of anything but if a friend says that he has this and do I want a copy, if I do I say yes. Right or wrong, I do it anyway. My little speech.

Thanks SlowNeasy. A great article and I remember Janis Ian signing her songs way back then. I wish I had them.

Recording a movie on television isn't the same as downloading music. IIRC, the people who make VCRs and the people who make movies compromised, and now the people who make movies receive a portion of money for every tape sold. As for the radio, the music on the radio is authorized to be on the radio, whereas the owners of the actual music never authorized the music to be on Napster. I also believe they receive some money for every cassette or tape recorder as well.

At least in Germany there is a certain amount of money included for the GEMA (German RIAA)in the price for tapes. And in Audio-CDR's (whoever buys them ?), too...

Lecrayon: It really is about time artists combine new efforts to present their works in another way than through old ways and run the risk of being exploited.
MessiahWWKD: In other words, artists shohuld be exploited by companies such as Napster instead of companies such as Geffen Records?
Lecrayon: To me RIAA could be in danger because of not working along with artists and of not wanting to change to more modern ways of publishing.
MessiahWWKD: Napster worked along with the artists by not regulating it in such a way that all its content on the servers had the consent of the authors? Of course they didn't, but to be honest, I don't think anybody cares whether or not Napster or the RIAA is cooperating with the artists. It's all about free music!
Lecrayon: So Napster is down, but KaZaa exists...I can download a fully functional Photoshop 7 program from there for free...flame away
MessiahWWKD: It sounds as if you're proud of it.
If only people would be honest and admit that they care as much for the artist and the rights of the artists as much as the RIAA does, if not less. After all, if these people really cared about the artists, then they would only trade the content of artists that support Napster and company, and make an effort to prevent music of artists who are against it from being publically distributed. In that way, everybody's happy except those people who don't care about artists at all and simply want free music.

beware the talking head...

MessiahWWKD: i think you've made your point about a million times. You exemplify the situation. You state "truths" and people go on and download music regardless. Starting to feel like a waste of time? It is.