thing that forms the virtual backbone of any Internet service company, subscribers. Of course, this would allow only subscribers to the ISP to use Napster. For example, if America Online purchased Napster, an estimate can be made about the benefits. American Online charges $24 per month for dial-up service, which comes out to be $288 annually. If AOL took in an additional five million of the 32 million Napster users, it could generate an additional $144 billion in annual fees.Of course, there is a downside. Regardless of Napster’s popularity, five million users would never switch over to an ISP simply for the program. When someone downloads files of the Internet, a certain amount of bandwidth (how much connection speed that is available) is taken up. If a single ISP took on 5 million extra users, all of whom would be downloading from Napster, the bandwidth would be so low that trying to download would be useless. Another fact is that there are plenty of free alternatives; gnutella, imesh, and audiofind.com are just a few examples of these.So how does the Record Industry benefit? Well, the one thing they have always been out to get, money. With the sale of Napster, the ISP would have to pay royalties or licensing fees to the copyright holder. Of course, that still means that they can charge so much for the license that the ISP would be forced to raise the price of a subscription. A possibility that is not improbable, considering that the average $15 CD costs a mere 15 cents to make.The downside that the record industry has to deal with is the fact that Napster will live on. If so, even more free alternatives will begin to fill the “e-shoes” that Napster so speedily created. Given that in the past months, the Industry has rejected every other proposal Napster has given, it is obvious that the record industry would regret not being able to shut them down completely.Finally, perhaps the biggest benefit of all...
