Napsters Effect on the Music Industry
Napster is a program that provides an exchange between people across the world where they can easily share music files over the Internet. This program has become the Number one search term on the Internet today. This program does not, or cannot distinguish between copyrighted music and non-copyrighted music, which means big record labels claim "piracy" on their released material. Debate has recently been fought in court on the existence of Napsters services. Both sides have fought the defense of these big record labels and the creators of Napster. Napster is an improvement in technology, and actually has increased record sales si ...view middle of the document...
We allowed people to tape our concerts from the beginning, and the record company questioned us about allowing that. Buy my thinking was that is only makes people want to buy more and increases devotion of people who are going to listen to us." This quote was one of Napsters main arguments, that Napsters use promotes the purchase of music. Another big named artist, B.B. King stated on the Yahoo Entertainment News page last September that "It is a good way to promote your music, buy copyright and things of that sort are something that will have to be worked out and they will be worked out. I remember when they didn't want you to have a VCR, but they worked it out and I think for the best. Smart people always get together and work it out." Like B.B. King said, the same thing happened with VCR's. They did not want you to own one and if you did get, they wanted royalties every time you would rent one of their movies. Some artists such as Metallica, tried to sue Napster for millions of dollars. They said they "will be satisfied with nothing less than the absolute eradication of Napster". Metallica lost the trial but Napster removed all Metallica Mp3's and kicked off the users who downloaded one of their copyrighted songs. The RIAA, the Recording Industry Association of America, warned that they "have written documents saying...