er problem that musicians have is that they truly can’t back up the claim that Napster has taken away approximately $12 million worth of album sales. I’ve seen numerous studies performed yielding some very different results. For example, ________________ did a survey of ___________ and found that not only did they not buy fewer CDs because of Napster, they bought more. The reasoning: Napster works basically like free promotion. People can browse through all the music they were ever interested in, but they still want to buy the CD. So when they find something they like they’ll go out and buy it. So many people simply get caught up with the big fiasco over the copyright infringement that they forget about the other implications brought about by the simple piece of software: That the world is turning digital. It’s really not very far off until we’ll be able to store thousands of songs onto a single optical disk. It’s all based on the rate of technology’s development, or Murphy’s Law. The growth is exponential, so eventually no laws will be able to prevent the transferring of digital music. But that’s the point of all this technology, right?…to be able to exchange ideas almost instantaneously. After all that’s what music is in the first place; just a few ideas. Who knows, this might be just what the music industry needs right now. There are so many really terrible bands and musicians out there, taking audiences and resources away from the really talented artists. But if bands are forced to rely more on the quality and originality of their music instead of just having good promoting connections or friends in the business, then the quality of music would drastically go up. Musicians have been lazy lately and they might even need this to make them get off their butts and redefine why they are doing what they are doing. So, Napster really isn’t the issue at ha...
