Okay, well I keep seeing a bunch of emails from kids writing complaining about Napster being shut down. True not all the letters are from the middle and high school crowd but the majority are. I've seen them argue several different points, and I'll address some of the more common.

1. Well, the musicians are rich enough, I think they are just greedy trying to get as much money as they can off us.

Well, actually I agree musicians make a ton of money, but so do people in other fields. Should we all try to sneak into athletic events and say that it's only right because the salary the players make? Sorry, I just don't buy the argument.

2. I don't want to be ripped off by buying a CD just for one song and not liking the rest of it.

This is also a valid complaint, but getting the whole CD for free isn't the solution either. Maybe it would be a better system if Napster only had like 1 minute samples of each song. That way you could get an idea of what the CD consisted of before you bought it, but you wouldn't be abusing the system by getting a full CD for free through napster

3. I don't actually download that many songs, I will listen to one or two from a CD and then go buy it if I like it.

Sorry, but that doesn't seem too likely. I mean I see people posting "I've downloaded thousands of MP3's from Napster, Napster is great", then see these same people making the claim there in #3. If you have thousands of MP3's you are probably not spending money on CD's, odds are you are using a burner.





Interestinly I now see that Napster wants to try to appease the government by possibly charging and making a profit. Oh, isn't that nice. Making a profit off files you aren't liscensed to sell? Well, I guess that they'd have to come up with an agreement that pays a portion of it to the artists for it to be legal in that case, but still isn't it amazing that the answer to this "free service" being questioned is: If doing this for free is wrong, maybe if I make money off it , it will be right? lol.

Like I said I would assume though that for this to be approved some portion of the money would have to go to the music industry.

How would I solve this problem? Well I'd let Napster work in 2 ways. The first is that any work by a local musician who does not sell CD's for profit is fair game and can be posted to be downloaded by anyone that wishes. Also if the local artist sold CD's but gave Napster written permission to post their MP3's for that artist that would be fine also. Now, with the national artists, where is what this whole dispute is based on, I'd say Napster can post one minute samples of each song. That way people could hear that artist, decide if they like what they hear, and buy the CD for the full versions. What's so wrong with that?

Recommended: No