downloaded music or have listened to any current news you have by no doubt heard of Napster and their constant disputes with the Recording Industry Association of America and even with specific musicians. To question the morality of this issue one first needs to look into how Napster originated. In January 1999, in a dorm room at North Eastern University in Boston, Shawn Fanning, a 19 year old music and computer enthusiast created the first versions of Napster. It started out being a project in which just a few friends were trying to facilitate the trading of compressed music files and other data. To save time they wanted to create a single place on the Internet where they could store all of their information. This was much easier than to physically go and borrow a CD or tape and then manually record it. It made obtaining all of their music more practical and even more so only a few mouse clicks away. This seemed harmless at first, but then as time went on their software soon became available all over the campus and not long after, nationwide. Napster was born. What started out to be a simple software tool to make trading data simple became a copy

right owner’s nightmare. In 2001 it was reported that somewhere over 50 million users were registered through Napster, all capable of downloading music at their will.

Is this morally acceptable based on Utilitarian beliefs? By being able to download free music from Napster you are taking away some of the rights of the musicians and the music industry as a whole to make revenue off their product. These individuals are the ones who have put not only their time but money into the recordings. So ultimately the action of downloading is hurting the music industry. The Utilitarian process of thinking is an action when made, makes a greater number of people the happiest over a long term of time and then that action is confirmed the right or correct action. This theory would suggest that downloading off the Internet is morally acceptable. No one can deny the fact that getting free music can save a single consumer hundreds of dollars each year. Saving money obviously makes the millions of music buyers happier, supporting the Utilitarian views. It is after all the customers who determine whether or not a certain song is going to be a hit or a failure. The music will always depend on consumerism and there will always be more consumers than music producers, so in the long run a majority of people would be happy to save their money and a fewer amount that are in the music business would suffer a profit loss. The Grateful Dead, a very popular American band encouraged bootlegged copies of their concerts in belief that this would create more popularity for their

Some topics in this essay:
Shawn Fanning, Napster Ushers, Grateful Dead, , Association America, morally acceptable, music industry, napster morally acceptable, question morality, rights people, free music, deontological views, napster morally,