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I like Napster. Songs I have not heard in years available in well 10 minutes or one hour, depending on the connection-and it costs me nothing. Well in economic terms, I did spend something, because there is no such thing as a free lunch. I spent my time downloading the song, which encompassed the use of my electricity and phone line. But there was no exchange of currency, between you and the makers of the music product; and therefore the people involved in the production of the music product were not compensated. This makes Napster inefficient in the market sense because proper payment is not getting to the parties whose time, money, energy, and talent went into the music product.
And that is why 20 million people almost lost Napster on July 27, 2000. Yes, Virginia, using Napster to download copyrighted material is stealing, for reasons already explained. But before all of you out there bombard this poor lowly editor with hate mail, read and learn.
If you feel thatLars Ulrich of Metallic, Dr. Dre and the hundreds of musicians who are anti-Napster, are greedy bastards then you need a dose of reality. These people, like millions of artist, their producers, and companies, put a lot into making these music products for your entertainment, and they have a right to make a profit. I hope when you go to work tomorrow that someone takes credit for all your work, and denies you a paycheck out of the sheer belief that your output should be free, because you or the owner of the company is "rich enough".
Now for the flip side of my argument, poor Shawn Fanning (the nineteen year old creator of Napster), he was just doing a good deed for his fellow human. Fanning just wanted to share the world of song with fellow music lovers. This is a great gesture, and would have been cool without the support of a venture capitalists who obviously only invest when money is to be made from the advertising revenues. Which of course will go directly to the owners and employees of Napster.
But what Young Fanning did was start a revolution; one I think the founding fathers would be proud. The people, the consumers of music, have finally realized the error of their ways and do not want to pay high prices for LPs any longer. The music lover no longer has to be subject to the marketing schemes of the large record companies and media outlets that tell us who has the talent and who does not. We can decide for ourselves! No More Heavy Rotation Radio! God Bless America! Courtney Love, lead singer of the group HOLE, summed up this point during her poignant and terrific speech given during the Digital Hollywood Online Entertainment Conference in New York City, May 16, 2000.
...Somewhere along the way, record companies figured out that it's a lot more profitable to control the distribution system than to nurture artists. And since the companies didn't have any real competition, artists had no other place to go. Record companies controlled the promotion, marketing; only they had the ability to get lots of radio play, and get records into all the big chain stores. That power put them above the artists and the audience. They own(ed) the plantation...
...Being the gatekeeper was the most profitable place to be, but now we're in a world half without gates. The Internet allows artists to communicate directly with their audiences; we don't have to depend solely on an inefficient system where the record company promotes our records to radio, press or retail and the sits back and hopes fans find out about our music...Digital distribution gives everyone worldwide, instant access to music....