h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"If you steal s**t from the Internet, you're taking a big s**t on us as a band"
Richard Patrick, Filter

Metallica, Don Henly, Filter...they all got a point about Napster. In that it's theft. Napster is theft that's been made 'cool' and a 'good thing to do'. If you walk into a high street retailer and go around stealing albums and stuff off the shelves, you expect to be punished, right? It's a bad thing, right? So what is it about Napster that suddenly makes it legal and ok?

One very good point made by Lars Ulrich was in response to:
"Metallica are invading the privacy of eweb surfers blahblahblahsteal"
to which Lars replied:
"**** that. If you raped a 12-year old girl in the 'privacy' of your living room, would that be alright?"

An extreme and aggressive response, but a valid one. Napster is theft taken to another level. Theft is not good, you know? That's why people who steal are sent to prison or fined!!!!
I work and earn my money in whatever way possible, and am quite happy to spend whatever amount of money is necessary to get the music I love. If you're so cheap that you can't be bothered to show a little bit of dough, then you can hardly call yourself a fan of the music, can you? You can, however, call yourself a cheapskate theif.

Which is why in the first 18 months of Napster, record sales increased by over 18% in the USA.

There are cheapskate thieves who will download crappy compressed MPEGs and play them through their tinny PC speakers, but frankly I think they are negligible.

On the other hand, I can grab a digitised copy of a record or CD *I already own* and save myself some hassle whn I want a bit of background noise on the computer. If I want decent quality, of course I go to my expensive stereo system and put on the original recording.

And I can grab, without risk, somehitng I think I might like. If I don't, I bin it. If I do, I buy it. And in that way, Napster is good for music. They said radio would kill the record industry. It didn't. They say Napster will. I don't think so.

as a napsetr user i have to agree, i download the music and buy what i like. its not really any different from recording the song of the radio now is it? well thats me anyway.