Re: Napster destroys Western Civilization

From: John Lederer <johnl[_at_]ibm.net>
Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 08:11:35 -0500

On Tue, 09 May 2000, Marty Hayes <9ball[_at_]hostsite.net> wrote:

>

> I haven't seen anything (and if you have, please chime in) that even
> remotely suggests that this Napster software has any other purpose
> or intent for use other than making copies of music files without
> paying royalties and without obtaining permissions. In fact, the
> creator has explicitly said that his intent was to provide people
> with a way to make copies of music files easily. Mr. Cumbow may be
> right -- Napster doesn't "technically" copy the works -- but the
> creator provides this product/service with the knowledge (and even
> the reasonable expectation) that it will be used to make
> unauthorized reproductions of music.

The same reasoning would apply to a Xerox machine or a camera, wouldn't it?.

Some portion of mp3's are legal. Buried under the publicity of perfomers that object are a fair number of performers that regard copying as good. Indeed if you go to http://www.mp3.com/ you will see a fairly wide selection of free "performer sanctioned" mp3's.

Indeed my neighbor's teenage son is "distributing" their band's songs through Napster in the hope of an eventual paying gig --- so far an unsuccessful strategy though their classmates do listen to their performances that way.

Not to pick at your analogy, though your prediction that we would is correct, but do we really want to equate music/speech to alcohol and guns?

Regards,
John Lederer.
<johnl[_at_]ibm.net> Received on Wed May 10 2000 - 13:13:51 GMT