Napster - the end of music as we know it

"The genie's out of the bottle, now artists need to let the revolution happen." Says Alan Kovac, President of Left Bank Management, which represents The Bee Gees and Motley Crue among others.

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The "genie" in question is Napster, and because you are reading this, you may already know what Napster is, and the effect it is having on both music, and the Internet. Napster uses software to place recorded music on the Internet, to be downloaded free of charge by anyone who wants to 'share' (that's Napster's word for it) the music that's available.

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The phenomenon of Napster makes it the biggest single revolution since the Internet itself. A MORI poll conducted In November last year reckons that one in three Internet users will have an entirely digital music collection within five years. Musicians and record companies are united in finding that concept terrifying, and attempting to do something about it.

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In America, high profile artists like metal band Metallica and rap artist Doctor Dre managed a temporary injunction against Napster last summer, but the company has argued successfully to maintain operations pending a legal appeal.

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In England, the British Music Rights Association, led by Sir Elton John, is campaigning vigorously against the concept of free down-loading, claiming that it infringes basic artists' rights to be paid for their work, as well as seriously undermining the careers and potential of rising composers and musicians.

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Onions are strongly debated�- on one side, music fans claim that multi-millionaires like Metallica shouldn't begrudge free access to their music. On the other side, artists given a voice by the BMR claim the potential destruction of the music industry as we know it will cause irreparable damage to the writing and recording processes that give Napster its music to "share" in the first place.

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Is Napster really the beginning of the end for the recording industry, or is just like FM radio, cassettes, videos, and CD's, all of which were greeted with similar dismay by the music business, but settled down to grow alongside existing formats.

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What do you think Is Napster sharing music, or is it digital piracy Will albums sales rise as music reaches ever wider audiences, or will the freedom to access an artist's work without the need to pay anything for it mean that new talent will simply never find a viable market on which to build a career

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