Considering that an average album has 12 songs on it, 600 songs would amount to 50 or so compact discs. Placing the price tag of $15 per disc this would easily add up to $750, perhaps more. And Jen Kistenmacher states that she sees nothing wrong. She defends that Napster provides exposure to new musicians; however, she fails to realize that an unexposed band will not be searched for until it has been exposed via another source. Bravo to Jen for stating “. the music industry is claiming that Napster . [is] illegal.” If only she would realize that the issue is not a matter of whether it’s illegal to trade copyrighted music, rather the issue is if Napster is to be accountable for involvement in such activities. It is interesting to note that Jen supports musicians who deserve it. I just hope that Jen is talented. Otherwise she just might deserve it. Like Metallica, there are many journalists, and other professionals who are paid well based on their past. They did not get to that point in their life without pay, I should point out. And yes, there are many artists who support Napster. As ironic as it sounds, I also support Napster, not for what it is, but for what it stands for. It’s a great service, a great means of music distribution; it only lacks one thing, which really is not that little at all. It lacks the whole reason that bands take on the life of musicians. For many bands music is about profit, to some it isn’t, either way they all want to make a living. There is no sketchy part about at what point sharing music crosses the line into being illegal. The mere fact of the matter is that once copyrighted music is shared, it is illegal. Any time you share copyrighted material, it’s illegal. Look into this matter. Sharing music for non-commercial or commercial reasons is illegal; the lawsuit against Napster is strange in the way that Napster operates without ever handling the actual music itself. And yes, you’re right, the illegal copying of music is raising the price of music further and further, and again let me state it is not because there are people who are illegally doing commercial business. Rather, it is because there are people who are doing non-commercial illegal business, like you. And let me clue you in on something else, musicians making better music will not make people buy more albums. The music will be better, songs will be illegally traded and nobody will see the cash flow they deserve. Realize that the case against Napster is not whether the trading of copyrighted music is illegal, it’s quite clearly illegal, the case about Napster is, however, about whether Napster should be charged with its involvement in such illegal activities. Christopher Rinkleff

Junior

Computer science