This culture of sharing over the Internet is something that dates back to its early days. Today, most of the stuff that you have online is free. Levine has studied people who use Napster and other sites and believes they have a variety of motives. People who write software and then offer it for free may simply find satisfaction in creating something others want. Others get a kind of anti-establishment kick out of defying standard business conventions.
People do things to benefit society.
But if millions of people are willing to pay good money to buy CDs, then load them onto hard drives and offer the material to others for free, traditional music sellers are in trouble. Indeed, Napster is too. I don't see how they are going to charge money and keep their users. Making the concept work The music, entertainment and publishing industries are ideally suited to e-commerce, since their products can actually be delivered online, not just ordered. Years ago these industries worried they'd be put out of business by tape recorders, VCRs and Xerox machines.