Okay, so Isabel sez:

I look forward to the end to Napster...then I don't have to listen to those fruity tooty girls on the bus talking about how they just heard the most unbelievable version of Radiohead or Badly Drawn Boy's- this or that. I mean once people have to pay for it again they are only really prone to seek out the good stuff, and not even the good stuff...but what they won't consider a waste of time and money. and then we can get back to knowing who genuinely likes great music and who is just willing to download it because it's free. Just because someone downloads a few cut tracks of an album doesn't make them a fan of the band.

Isn't this kind of a snobbish attitude to have? It all smacks a bit of "I was a mod before you was a mod" to me... Surely there's a pretty obvious distinction between people who use Napster to download whole albums which are available in the shops (which is essentially stealing) and people who download tracks which are not, and indeed may never be available - long deleted B-sides, live tracks, radio sessions, etc, etc.

Where are the good ole days that you had to wait til you got home to find out if your new CD sucked. Napster has ruined the evolutionary process of the music cycle.

I'm not sure anyone in their right mind would sit trawling through everything on Napster rather than buying stuff, particularly when nearly every record shop in the land will give you your money back if you don't like a CD. It's like the argument against people swapping tapes, ie, pretty flimsy. Besides, you've been able to listen to CDs in most record shops before you buy them for years, so what's the difference? And while you all think

you are getting this great sneaky, clean free music, someone is paying the price...and its almost like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

People have been saying that "X" will destroy the music industry for time immemorial, and guess what, it ain't happening. I'm not saying we should be complacent, or take for granted the beautiful music that's being made at the moment, but Napster isn't hurting anybody other than bands who rip off their fans by charging too much for their products or releasing shoddy material which isn't worth paying for. But hey, that's just my opinion... Andrew. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the undead Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "peculiarly deranged fanbase" "frighteningly named +-+ +-+ Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+