Lexx Music!!!
quote:
Originally posted by Christine Carroll:
[b]Ok… Here’s the deal as I understand…. most sounds are copy righted…this is Napster…. people record songs off Cd’s cassettes abd anywhere else they can find music then they upload it to sites like Napster and we the little people get the music… the whole mp3 thing and other ways of getting music on the web is illegal! But people do it anyway. your right there is a thing about artists not getting money because maybe there music is on the web and people are getting it for free… [/b]
Okay, getting into the Napster subject is a big ugly kettle of fish. People are generally pro-Napster or violently anti-Napster. One thing, though…Napster is not a site. They do *have* a site, but they do not host any MP3s on that site. Napster is software that allows you to tap into a network of computers, all of them sharing music files, and if you download a song from them, you are supposed to allow these files to be shared back into the system. People claim that it is hurting record sales, that when people download an album or song that these people are not likely to spend money to buy the same thing. However, I’m of the opinion (since it’s been my experience) that it’s basically the same as taping albums for people. The sound quality is about 1/2 of what a CD features (CD-quality sound is encoded at 256 Kb/s, most of the better MP3’s you find are at 128 Kb/s, which is about the same as FM radio broadcast sound). The main way that it hurts sales, IMHO, is that it allows people to hear music before they buy it, and decide for themselves whether or not it’s worth the money. From working in retail for years, it’s been my experience that when someone buys a CD, they do so having little to no idea what the majority of the CD sounds like. If they don’t like it, they’re not likely to return it, because most retailers have pretty strict return policies, or they’re just lazy. There are many cases (like mine) where I’ve used Napster to familiarize myself with artists and albums that I really didn’t know about, and have later gone out and bought. But, again, there are probably tons of people that are using Napster as just a way to get out of paying for music. [img]http://www.sadgeezer.com/ubb/frown.gif[/img] But, there are also tons of people that will just put up with lousy taped copies of albums rather than buy their own, too, and home taping never killed the music industry (which made $1 billion more this past year than the previous one).
So my stance? I’m ambivalent. I use Napster infrequently due to a slow connection at home, and use it primarily for exposure to unknown (to me, anyway) bands and albums, or to get commercially unavailable tracks from bands I do already like (which is another subject for another day).
My $.02. Take it for what you will. [img]http://www.sadgeezer.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img]
–Aleck