Napster Pros and Cons

Napster is a web-based index of mp3's which members can go into and download songs from various artists. Napster’s programming goes through a user's hard drive and publishes a list of all the songs it finds onto a central database. So all a user has to do to find a song he or she wants is enter the name of an artist or a song to see if anyone else on the network has it. If the song is found they can download it which has made Napster the largest online music library (Cohen 2). Because of its large number of members, colleges and universities have banned the program. When Napster is running on multiple PC's, it makes campus networks become slow as thousands or users download songs at the same time (Cohen 3). Not only do schools go after Napster, but also so do many well-known artists. Major

Artists such Dr. Dre and Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich are suing the company for aiding and abetting music piracy (Cohen, "Does..." 1) "It is...sickening to know that our art is being traded like a commodity rather than the art that it is," said metallica drummer Lars Ulrich. Popular artists, for fear of piracy, have so far not released digital renditions of their work (Cohen "Does..." 2).

Surveys have shown that a user who finds music they like on Napster go out and buy the album (King 2). The report also found that nearly 60 percent of those surveyed would buy the music if they could buy it then and there. Another online poll shows that respondents already spend nearly 12 hours per week using Napster. They also prefer downloading individual songs rather than full-length albums. More than half admit to burning their own CD's with files taken from Napster. People that use Napster are sick of paying inflated prices for CD’s with only one or two good tracks. The Federal Trade Commission said that the practice of inflating CD prices has been done since 1995, denying music retailers cooperative advertising payments for selling them too cheaply. This practice has cost consumers and additional $480 million over the past three years. “Recording artists have essentially been giving their music away for free under the old system, so new technology that exposes our music to a larger audience can only be a good thing.” Says Courtney Love of Hole (Foege 4). Napster may charge for software, creating a paid subscription to pay record labels and music publishers (Foege 5). Napster has also inspired new inventions such as MP3 playing watches, companies like Liquid Audio are devel

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