I wonder if back as a child, Mr. Lars Ulrich from Metallica used to tape his favorite songs off the radio and share tapes with his friends? I sit here and wonder how many of these so-called music stars used to do just the same? How many of them would be using Napster today if they were not music? Things that make you go hmmm....I used to love that song; maybe I'll just log onto Napster and download it.
But wait, if Mr. Ulrich of Metallicathat greedy, money-grubbing band that I do love-but can't stand at that moment, gets his way, Napster will be no longer around and people like me will have to search in discount bins and crappy record stores to find that song we loved so much as kids.
Napster is a FREE Internet service that allows everyone a chance to download music for free. You can share files with your Internet companions and listen to your hearts' content. Musical hits (great songs in my opinion) that can be downloaded include classics such as Mr. Roboto by Styx, and soon to be a classic It Sucks to be You by Prozzak. Over twenty million users are finding it easy to locate these songs and share them with one another.
The music industry has a major problem with this, claiming copyright infringement and theft of their music. My colleague, Jennifer J. in her Napster
I do not care much for legal crap, because at most time it is set up to keep little guys from moving up in the world. In this case, Napster is being held back in an attempt to keep them from making money, in an attempt to keep us from listening to good music and in an attempt to have us dish out up to twenty dollars for a CD, or listen to the same songs over and over again as stations play a song every hour on the hour.
I am the common man. A man of the people. I write for the masses, not for some stuffy lawyer type charging a thousand an hour, claiming he/she is just trying to feed their family. So my views, hopefully, are your views. Let's see...
View 1: I want special songs. I want hard to find songs. I don't want full albums. If I want Mr. Roboto, I don't want to buy the whole Styx album. Mr. Roboto, in my opinion, was the only good song. Why do some musicians make a song for an album (for example Christina Aguilera), and when they release it for radio, it is re-recorded and sound different. I should buy an album for a song that sounds bad when there is a better version out there that can be downloaded off the net? What about special concert versions and mixes? Where can I get them without being incredibly hooked up? Napster helps me get these songs. That's all I care about.
View 2: Yeah, people have downloaded the Limp Bizkit Mission Impossible 2 (MI:2) song. Limp Bizkit doesn't care. They support Napster. Record executives do care. They want me to buy the whole CD. No way. A colleague I work with on my alma mater's paper, received the MI: 2 CD and said it sucked. Only Metallica and Limp Bizkit's songs were worth buying and often times, record companies won't release a single to the public, forcing us to shell out boku bucks for utter crap. And if they do release a single, they charge like four dollars for it, put the instrumental version, (ooh, thanks) and expect us to buy it. A full CD with about sixteen tracks costs sixteen dollars, so that is a dollar a track. Buying a single means I am paying the equivalent of four tracks and only getting one. Now, who is ripping who off? Now, I'd much rather download it for free until the record execs decide to charge fairer prices.
View 3: Records cost sixteen dollars? Why? So the record company makes a fortune and the artist is still a starving artist. I read Courtney Love's piece and she is in the music industry and I doubt she is totally bullshitting us about the indentured servitude music stars go through without seeing much from their work. Do I need to go into the long history of the TLC and Toni Braxton? I don't think so. CDs are cheap to make, so the price should reflect this. They say they have to raise prices because of bootleggers and places like Napster. If you didn't charge such high prices, there wouldn't be that much of a need for bootleggers. Let's try an experiment. Sell a full CD for the five dollars the bootleggers charge (even eight dollars isn't bad) and you'll sell double the amount of CD's almost effectively making the same amount of money. Game enough to try? Probably not. Why do something good when you can screw the community and everyone in between?
View 4: What about tape recording? We've been recording songs off the radio for years and sharing it with friends and family. Have cops busted into our homes to stop us? No. The whole world does it. Radios come equipped for it. The record companies had a problem with it at one time, but have learned to accept it. Now, they release a song, actually pay a radio station to play it (through a middle-man of course) and don't release another song for like three months. Radio stations are pawns of these companies and even though they have the full CD, refuse to play other tracks except for the ones released. Losers.
We now live in an age where songs can be downloaded off the computer. Most computers come with CD-writers, and blank CDs are sold in music stores for God's sake. It's becoming accepted practice. How do we control it? You don't. It's a new age. Go with it. Chances are, it will help increase sales. In fact, a recent study, also in the article written by Courtney Love, showed that sales of CDs have increased since Napster came about. So what's the problem? Who knows, maybe concert sales will go up and Hootie and the Blowfish won't play a free concert to almost no one and Savage Garden won't play at Hershey Park to a near empty crowd. Napster could help. It's true. It's true.
View 5: And what about the new guys? What about those singers you see on USA Networks' Farmclub.com, who owe their possible success to MP3's that may be found on Napster?
Final View: You can't shut down a company that some big name stars support. Limp Bizkit is just one of the artists who have thrown their support to Napster. As long as you have a divide amongst big name stars, then this whole copyright infringement thing can't all be that big of a deal. If Fred Durst is cool with Napster and he can stand to lose money from it's success, well then why are stars from Metallica all up in arms? The real question here is how far will people go because of greed?
Like this point of view? Hate my guts? Then drop me a line! JMinners@ybfree.com