It should be noted that record sales have gone up, not down in the years since the introduction of mp3 compression.
Neutron Star brings up a good point (now I am not saying this to justify, but just as a point of discussion).
Now, let’s say that I can get an entire album off Napster. Unless I have broadband, it would take me days to download all the songs. Even with broadband, it would take some searching and then downloading (hopefully off someone else with broadband) then I have to convert all the songs to be burned onto a CD, which supposes that I have a CD writer. If I wanted an entire album then I would likely just go purchase it. If I only like one song on the album, and I cannot purchase the one song, then I either go without or I download it.
But the ability to download songs, might drive more purchases of CDs. Just a thought.
Jeffery
mp3 cant be banned since it is the third version of the audio part of the international mpeg standards.
I am just a music fan and I support napster. But the ease with which I can get copyrighted songs is ridiculous. My gut feeling is it will lose the lawsuit.
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Was thinking about it more, and I decided that Napster is toast after I realized that I have purchased a whole 2 CDs in the last year.
Napster is history, but similar products will fill the vaccuum. Like Gnutella. Gnutella can’t be shut down either… there is no central server.
I don’t think anyone thinks the record companies should be getting $18 a CD, which is the average at Tower Records last I checked. Until they get alittle more reasonable, I don’t see music piracy declining.
As to music companies needing to recoup costs, I agree. But at the insane profit margin they are at now? Bullshit. And what about bands they dont promote? What are they recouping from the latest garage recorded Flaming Death Kittens album?
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One certainly unlikely arrangement, but I think it could be compromise that would still allow Napster to serve its users and also give the artists the exposure they need, but still leave CDs with a market is this.
Have Napster limit its users to accessing MP3s with bit rates of 128 KHz or lower. Users would have the access they do now to trying out new music, and still giving bands the exposure they need, hopefully maintaining the CD sales growth that has propogated. But a true fan even with a CD burner would have the incentive to buy the new versions to get that CD quality sound needed for good bootleg dubbing.
I think its a good arrangement, but it clearly won’t happen. The legal battle is about right and wrong, and someone has to win.
I use Napster, I like it, but I’m not about to pretend I have some inherent right to that music. I don’t know if I’d agree that Napster is legally responsible, and the Kinko’s case referenced I certainly think is a miscarriage of justice. Ah, I’m going to beef up my Mp3 collection before a decision is rendered.
Napster is just a way of trading files. It is no more “evil” then fpt sites. think about what will hapen when everyone has a 100k link to the internet? a huge amount of software will be traded each day. windows for free anyone?
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