Napster : Right or Wrong?

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English 11

Words: 1302

12/ 20/ 00

Napster : Right or Wrong ?

"As an artist, there are so many ways that we can be taken advantage of. To have yet one more way to stip an artist of making an honest living is just to much. That's why I sued." ( Levy, 51 )

- Andre Young ( Dr. Dre)

Rapper/Producer

There are many ways that an artist can be stripped of making an honest living, Napster, one

of the many 'Mp3' services online, is the latest. An Mp3 ( short for ISO-MPEG Audio Layer 3 ) is a digital

compression of a music or video file so it's easier to send to one another over the internet ( Levy, 51 ).

Napster is an online music source where you can search for a song and download it absolutely free, with just

one click from your fingertips.

The Napster program, created by 19 year-old college drop out Shawn Fanning, is the fastest

growing site in history. It recently passed the 25 million mark in less than a year since it was released

(Greenfeld, 62 ). His program allows you to download copyright music, and that's why he is being sued by a

number of corporations. Napster is being sued by RIAA ( the Recording Industry Association of America ),

record companies ( BMG, the holder of lables like: Arista, Bad Boy, RCA, LaFace ), and artists ( Rock band

Metallica and Rapper/Producer Dr.Dre).

"I'm down for a parallel business even if it's parasitic. Napster is the new radio. It's the most

exciting thing since rap, disco and the Beatles." said rapper Chuck D, and it did it is ( Levy, 51 ). Napster is

like a radio. You can listen to music and preview it for free. Some artists are actually for Napster like Chuck

D. , Neil Young, and rock group Limp Bizkit, who headlined a free tour sponsored by Napster along with

Cypress Hill. Napster is like a new radio. It's been said that people use Napster because they feel so

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ripped off that compact disc prices are so high. They would rather just download the whole album online,

then burn it on to a cd spending only three dollars for a burned cd instead of the seventeen dollars spent for

buying the actual album. The generalized public that use Napster are young ( teenagers and college

students, it was even banned in some colleges because they used school resources for the wrong reasons,

instead of using it for eduacation they used it for Napster ) it sort of means that young kids don't money,

having no money leads to no buying cd's, so their instinct is just download it of Napster and burn it.

Everyone knows that radio and network television are public domain. They think that it's alright to download

broadcast media from network television or radio on Napster. For example: You missed an episode of Jay

Leno last night and Christina Aguilera performed. You want to hear the performance so you decide to go to

Napster, search for it, and download it because you can't get the song anywhere else, but it's okay anyway

because that performance was on network television, public domain. In other words, do you pay for MTV,

VH1, HBO? Yes, but do you pay for radio broadcasting, NBC, ABC, Fox? No, it's