Chapter 3- Smart Mobs

In chapter three of Smart Mobs, one of the issues that Rheingold talks about is the controversial issue of free downloading of music. This issue is controversial because just as Rheingold says Napster wanted to allow people to download free mp3s but music artists feared that this would harm their record sales. I believe that downloading music on your computer is harmless because no matter what site, Napster or the other many sites, people will find a way to download music and there really isn't a lot to do to prevent this. It is actually the same thing as one friend going out and buying the cd and having the rest of their friends burning the cd. I still believe that if the cd is a good enough cd, the artist will still make plenty of money. Of course I understand where music artists are coming from, their record sales probably did decrease a lot since Napster was created, but with technolodgy advancing, it's inevitable. Just as i'm sure that with technolodgy advancing movies will soon be available to download more frequenlty and easier. It is something that has to be dealt with as more and more people have the technolodgy to make these downloads easier. I do agree that it is probably very frusterating for music artists to know that their spending so much money to produce an album only for their music to be downloaded and copied to a cd for free, but theres really nothing these artist can do. I also believe it was acceptable for Napster to agree that the artist have a right to tell which songs they would like to be downloaded for free, but with all the new sites created, it is again inevitable.