Most of the voices seem to be on the side of Napster just because the "big evil RIAA" is suing them. Many Slashdotters might be wrapped up in Open Source and sharing and all that good stuff they they forget there are things out there that are not to be distributed.:) Napster seems to be positioning themselves as a way to "find your favorite artists" while bypassing all those no-name artists putting legit MP3s out there. All the arguments keep pointing to the fact that there are Legit MP3s being tossed around, but I would guess that is a strict minority on Napster's service. You cannot tell me that the RIAA doesn't have their priorities straight, because Napster (along with IRC, FTPs, etc) is obviously nipping at their clients' business. It doesn't hurt that Napster has their own servers that users connect to and is so visible it just sticks out there. How the RIAA did what they did is up for criticism, but _what_ they are trying to do shouldn't be. If you could do something that someone else can't, and you can make money off it, wouldn't you want it protected? Hell, a patent system (as well as copyrights, trademarks, etc) is discussed in Article 1 of the US Constitution! Where do we draw the line? Unfortunately, I'm guessing lawsuits are going to be telling us Real Soon Now.
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Most of the voices seem to be on the side of Napster just because the "big evil RIAA" is suing them. Many Slashdotters might be wrapped up in Open Source and sharing and all that good stuff they they forget there are things out there that are not to be distributed. :)
Napster seems to be positioning themselves as a way to "find your favorite artists" while bypassing all those no-name artists putting legit MP3s out there.
All the arguments keep pointing to the fact that there are Legit MP3s being tossed around, but I would guess that is a strict minority on Napster's service.
You cannot tell me that the RIAA doesn't have their priorities straight, because Napster (along with IRC, FTPs, etc) is obviously nipping at their clients' business. It doesn't hurt that Napster has their own servers that users connect to and is so visible it just sticks out there. How the RIAA did what they did is up for criticism, but _what_ they are trying to do shouldn't be. If you could do something that someone else can't, and you can make money off it, wouldn't you want it protected? Hell, a patent system (as well as copyrights, trademarks, etc) is discussed in Article 1 of the US Constitution!
Where do we draw the line? Unfortunately, I'm guessing lawsuits are going to be telling us Real Soon Now.