On Napster, record companies

I'm sorry if you guys have heard about this quite a lot already, and I'd like to remind Michalson that this is not, in nature, a flame war. Note that even though I say Napster, I mean Napster, Morpheus, Gnutella, KaZaA Lite, etc. ------------------------------- I will admit that before Napster was released, I was not an avid music listener. I have trouble thinking of the bands that I enjoyed, or even the CDs that I have owned. I was then-and I am now-a computer geek. I did not have much regard for music. However, my view has been wholly changed in the past year or two. When Napster came out, I did not know too much about computers. I did not understand the fact that Napster had fundamentally changed the architecture of the internet-I just saw it as a way to get free music. Even with this advantage, I had taken it little. I think that the only band I have listened to until recently was the Beastie Boys. On the contrary, in the past year or so, I have started to really listen to this music. I discovered music that I would never had discovered if my main source of music was the radio: Bands such as the Beastie Boys, Run DMC, The Who, the Beatles, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, and many more have captivated me. I have downloaded music like a madman in the past few months. Nothing could stop my thirst for these great songs. I gradually started to take more of an interest in this peer-to-peer technology that changed the way we look at things. If I recall correctly, I remember seeing in a Wired not too long ago an article about how the makers of Napster created a peer-to-peer plug-in for Outlook Express to help stop spam. But then it hit me: my music sounded dry and grainy: the measly 128kb/s mp3 files that I was downloading sounded bad. I have recently started to download the wav file wherever possible and converted them into 500kb/s ogg vorbis files, but it is very difficult to do this, as a wav file of a song is often as large as the corresponding music video would be for it. I ripped my Beastie Boys CD to 500kb/s ogg vorbis files, which took me all of 20 minutes. I thought to myself: would it not be great if I could just get all of my music this way? I would have a lot of songs, each one would be perfect quality, it would not be a hassle to get them, and it would be legal, too. The only downside is that I have to pay a small fee for a CD, which unfortunately is rather large for me-I am not sitting on a stackload of money or anything. I am going to buy CDs of all my favorites soon, probably buy a stereo-I used to use my computer-and rip some files to 500kb/s ogg vorbis files to give back to the Napster community. My question is: what are the record companies making so much fuss about? Even though it takes away from their potential market at a birds-eye view, it indirectly benefits them. Do they not realize that even if you have a fast internet connection, many downloads will be extremely slow, songs will sound dry, and it is very hard to get full albums? Napster indirectly affects them because it lets people sample different kinds of music, makes them more interested in music in general, and a lot of the penalties of Napster are compensated for in CDs. ------------------- The saddest part about Microsoft bashing is that it's all true. [edited by - elendil67 on November 6, 2002 10:02:55 PM]