Record executives are a dubious option - Napster users were stunned this week when the the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision that will end the unregulated trading of mp3 music files. But like a guilty child with chocolate around their mouth insisting they didn t steal any cookies, Napster users must come to terms with their copyright infringing ways. Users who argue Napster downloads are as harmless as recording a mix tape for a friend are not considering the awesome scale on which those downloads are made. Boasting over 50 million users, Napster offers a wealth of music files. Downloading files from a stranger who can only be identified as boobster57 doesn t qualify as an innocent transfer of tunes between friends.
Record executives are a dubious option.
Napster was relished by a young generation with little subversive power and an impressive economic cache corporations exploited at every opportunity. The ambiguous nature of the Napster question made it difficult for the public to come to terms with their actions. Now that the record industry has silenced the downloading public, they in turn deserve public scrutiny. The intangibility of information, including audio information, is quickly rendering cumbersome listening formats obsolete. If the record industry will not accommodate listeners whose perception of music has changed irreconcilably, they will suffer another Napster insurrection.