As far as I'm concerned Napster brought all of this upon themselfs.

• Big Mistake #1: They had an opportunity to get a licencing deal from all of the major copyright holders but they decided to pass.
  


• Big Mistake #2: They take control out of artists hands. You can go to my band's web page right now and download 2 songs from our demo, but I think that should be up to myself and my band, NOT every little person out there with an MP3 encoder. For this reson they'll never be able to really enough artists behind them to give them the support they need.
  


• Big Mistake #3: They are an illegal service. If they were really smart they would have moved to some carribian island with no regulatory laws and set up shop there.
  

Finally, there are (and have been) much better services out there. So you can still get the mp3's (and videos, and other content) you want from a speedier service where people can't sign off on you, and know it's perfectly legal (because they are licenced by the Copyright Holders).

[Edited by Raskolnikov on 04-22-2001 at 01:34 PM]