helps get groups known in the general public and help to boost record sales. So why are people like Metallica and Dr. Dre so angry with Napster? One reason, unrelated to record sales, is that Napster offers unperfected versions of unreleased songs that these artists do not want released until they are completed. But since I am focusing on record stores and record sales, I will look at the tradeoff between free advertising and decline in sales. While people can get samples to entice them to buy, they can also get whole songs to allow them to save money form buying the album. The first and more obvious area where Napster affects record stores in a negative way is that it can reduce sales. Anyone familiar with Napster knows that a fast enough Internet connection can allow you to get songs off of the service in under a minute. These downloaded songs are free, and for those who do not want to be inconvenienced with being restricted to listening to music only on their computers, about $200 can get you a rewriteable CD-ROM drive that allows you to burn songs from the hard drive of your computer right on to compact discs. These blank compact discs cost roughly $1 each. The fast Internet connection that I mentioned could be obtained for as little as $20 per month, where most record stores charge almost $15 per CD. The next aspect where Napster and other digital music providers hurt record stores is in the recent onset of the MP3 portable recorder and player. This very small device allows someone to take music directly off of the computer and carry it with them, taking up little space while listening to your favorite tunes with ease.These are the main affects that Napster has had on the record sales industry. While some may argue, with the statistics to back it up, that Napster has helped boost record sales; the popular consensus is that Napster hurts record sales and that it is the economy that has boosted record sales in the last fe...
