So, why touch on such a sensative matter? Even though there are many rockers that visit this web site, and some of those will despise Napster, I couldn't help ignore such a big debate. And if you were to visit Napster and view the Forum section, you can see what I am talking about. This is not an advertisement for Napster nor is it a promotion for the company. This is my personal view on what I have gotten out of it and where I think they should take it in the future. First of all, I will be honest in saying that when I first got on Napster (before I knew about all of the controversy), I found it to be extrememly cool because I was able to find songs that I thought I would never be able to obtain in CD quality ever. I had either the cassette or album versions and never got the CD (or never new it was available). One by one, all of the songs I was searching years for, could no longer be purchased in the stores, and were too rare for the used CD bins, were appearing to me. Now I can make my own CD's with the lost songs of yesteryear. Now comes the tough part. I found out that Napster was being used by people who just wanted to obtain certain songs without having to purchase the whole CD. I can understand how this would upset the artists and especially the record companies. Millions of dollars being lost because of little or no sales. Now, let me interject with a little controversy of my own. A lot of the newer bands these days have only got one shot to make it. They usually only last about one or two releases and are never heard from again. So, they need as many sales as possible to earn a living (not that they just live on CD sales alone). Solution: Release CD's with better music. don't just spend your whole life coming up with one or two good songs and live off of them for years. If you can't write great songs, then have someone do it for you. Hell, even Kiss, as great as they are, depend on co-writers for a lot of their most popular songs. If they can do it, I'm sure you can too. Case in point. The past Foo Fighters CD's were awesome. I can listen to every song on the discs over and over again. This almost assures them that people will buy the CD, for all of the songs instead of people wanting to only download a few from the CD. Oh sure, they can still probably download all of the songs from Napster. But, if you put out great CD's like that, people will become great fans and want the actual release for their collection. There are so many bands from the 80's and early 90's that put out such great albums that they get played time and time again in my car. Quality music (if you like that stuff-I DO!). Let people say what they will about the "Hair Bands" and their music. But, they really cared about the music, not just the look, and that's why the songs were so great. Bands today don't worry about the long run. WHAT CAN YOU DO FOR ME NOW! I could go on and on about this matter, but I think I made my point.

Now, what do I think the future of Napster should be. I think it would be great if they did stay around, but only make it legal to trade songs that are OOP. No longer available on the market anywhere. If you can't buy the CD, the artist and label can't make any money anyway, so who is that really hurting? Napster could be the coolest community in the world if it was used for the obtainging the obscure, not abusing the available.

I know I ramble on a bit here and most of this stuff was written out of passion and without much thought. So I apologize if I offend anyone or likewise, did not say enough about the subject. I will give Napster a 10 for the idea, concept and my execution for the use of them. And a 1 for how they are handling the misuse of songs that are being given a way by the millions.