25 Million Users On Napster example essay topic

(1) 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 stop 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 'Mp 3's ervices online, is the latest.

An Mp 3 (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 lab les like: Arista, Bad Boy, RCA, La Face), 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 (2) 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 education 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, VH 1, HBO?

Yes, but do you pay for radio broadcasting, NBC, ABC, Fox? No, it's public domain, therefore it's free. Imagine that there was a Christina Aguilera made for television special on ABC, and you record it for your own enjoyment, that's okay. If you record it, make one hundred copies of it, and sell it on the street is wrong and that's why many are against Napster. There are some people that I know personally, that download albums off the internet and sell them to their friends, and that is where the line is crossed. You are taking copyrighted music and selling it to other people.

It's something called copyright infringement, which is a federal law. It's an obvious abuse of new technology like high speed internet access (the higher the speed, the higher your connection is online, the faster you can download Mp 3's), cd burners (burn all your Mp 3's on to a disc and make a little profit by selling it to your friends), and Napster itself as well as other programs of its kind. The counterfeit cd's only benefit the bootlegger because the artist gets ripped off (3) and the consumer gets ripped off because they get a low quality product that will last up to 6 years at the most. So why buy a black market cd that won't last forever, when you can buy the real deal in stores for a couple dollars more and it " ll last forever. Most of all, Napster is depriving artists of what they do. They don't do what they do for the hell of it, they do it because they love it and they do it for the people, but by selling their cd's you deprive the artist of earnings they have worked hard for.

It's as if music artists are working for free because they are getting no money what so ever with this Napster case, and it's morally wrong. It's a case of stealing artists 'intellectual property'. (Ulrich, 54) There are over twenty-five million users on Napster, imagine if each user downloaded one album from Napster, that would be a whole lot of albums that could have been sold for the artist, but many choose to just download it for free, not feeling guilty that they have just stole someone's intellectual property. For each album sold, an artists gets a range from fifty cents to three dollars. So do the math: 25 million users on Napster, if each user downloaded 1 album, that's 25 million cds.

Let's say an artist makes two dollars for each cd sold, that would mean that there goes 50 million dollars thrown right into the air. Napster has changed the music world forever. They caused record companies to rethink their business tactics and recording artists to be more defensive of t hier intellectual property (Greenfeld, 62). Along with Napster, there are many other online Mp 3 sites such as: Gnutella, Free Net, Scour, and Mp 3. com. If Napster has 25 million users, think of the number of users Gnutella has, and Free Net and Scour.

It's absurd. (Stone, 62) What if you were put in that position where you were an artist that had just came out wanted to get a cd out, then he does, and he becomes famous and well known. You " re on MTV, VH 1, BET, CMC. Your cd comes out, but Sounds can comes back with bad record sales. You find out that many users on Napster had downloaded the whole album, wouldn't you be outraged? You don't know what they are doing with your (4) property.

If artists actually gave the 'okay!' to let Napster have their songs being swapped online, then everything would be okay, but artists haven't agreed to that. They should have the right to be payed something out of the whole Napster ordeal. Napster should a service where you pay a monthly fee, and there are certain artists that abide to have their songs swapped on Napster. The artists get some money for their songs being downloaded and Napster the company get money for themselves as well, so it benefits both of them. (Stone, 56) Napster users have to realize that free isn't forever. They have to realize that it won't be free forever because of all the controversy, that in all fairness all parties, users, artists and Napster itself, should benefit and one way this can happen is through the idea of paying a monthly fee for Napster.

Users tried it for free, and obviously they like it due to its overwhelming popularity. However all good things must end and users must realize that they have just been given a privilege, and not a right.