Is Napster saving the music industry??? You decide...
Jun 29 '00
So many people are divided on the whole issue of Napster- how will distributing mp3s for free online affect the music industry?
- Because almost every song out there are available for free now via Napster, the artist is reaching a wider audience. One of my favorite new artist is a techno band named Basement Jaxx. They've been around for a while (as I've learned) but if it wasn't for a fellow Napster member's recommendations, I would have never gotten a chance to give Basement Jaxx a listen. To this day, their music is what I play the most whenever I'm driving.
- Can somebody please explain to me why CD sales dropped consistently from around 1996 to late 1998 and then suddenly rose 20% after the introduction of Napster? I think it's because of the fact that Napster gives us a wider exposure to a better variety of music at no cost at all.
- Everyone's heard the data that there was a 15% drop in CD sales of music stores near college campuses. Well, DUH! don't you think with the super-fast Ethernet connections that college kids have on campus, they'd be buying their music online?!
- For example, I'm the type of a person that rarely buys an album just for one song. Before Napster, what were the other ways that I would have known that other songs on a particular album would be just as enjoyable as the one that's playing on the radio and MTV? Enter Napster. I simply download three or four more songs and give them a listen. If I like them, then I'll probably buy the CD. This is the effect that Napster has- I don't know how many people out there actually uses the computer as a priority medium to listen to music but I know that it's not as convenient as CD players or Discmans. What about those who want to listen to CDs whenever they're driving? People would still have to buy CDs to be able to listen to their preferred music whenever they're away from their computers.
- When Metallica forced Napster to block access to those who had already downloaded Metallica's songs, they didn't realize that the ones who really got hurt were their most loyal fans. Suppose, I got blocked from using Napster because I simply downloaded a song from them. Do you think I would want to listen to any more of their materials? (Unless it blows me away, but that's a different story).
- One more thing, the new Red Hot Chili Peppers video for "Californication" rocks. Yes, that was just a pointless fact but hey, you're paying attention, which is good...
- And, screw the capitalists of the music industry. They're mostly aimed at making that almighty dollars by creating such a packaged array of musicians (i.e. Brittney Spears, N'Sync, Jessica Simpson, Blink 182, and almost any other bands you see on MTV now) that they're forgetting the real definition of music- it's a forum of true artistic expression. If being a musician was something that we loved to do and would have dedicated our lives to doing so, then we wouldn't have cared if we had to make money off every little tune that we'd produce.
- If you're looking for another services that's similar to Napster (probably because you got booted off for downloading songs by Metallica), the only other decent alternative that I know is iMesh (use your search engine to find the sites where you can download the software). I haven't used this particular service yet, but my brother does (he was one of the 300,000 that got booted off for downloading a Metallica song) and his biggest complaint with iMesh is that it's very slow when it comes to downloading songs.
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Epinions.com ID:
msposner
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Member: Michael Posner
Location: Washington, DC / College Park, MD
Reviews written: 104
Trusted by: 68 members
About Me:
I think your woman is great in bed.
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