The famous 19th century preacher Dwight L. Moody uttered one of the  greatest sayings the world has ever heard: “Character is what you are in the  dark.” When nobody’s looking, when it couldn’t possibly matter, when there’s no way anyone will ever find out, that’s when your true nature shows.

Napster, for all its faults, has something positive going for it — it is a wonderful measure of character. Here we have a computer program that allows us to instantaneously call up nearly any piece of music ever published… how convenient! Not only are we saved the chore of driving to the record store, neither must we suffer that most contemptible of duties, paying for our music, any longer!

Wonderful, isn’t it? Creators create, consumers consume. It’s about time that vile financial system known as capitalism fell. Let us simply take what we want! Why pay when we can steal?

Make no mistake — it is stealing. Downloading music against the wishes of the artist or producer is breaking the law. From that, judging one’s character is a simple matter.

“But M. Scott, you’ve got it all wrong!” you may be thinking. “It’s not really stealing. I’m just making a copy of Puff Mama’s song – I’m not taking it away from anyone else. It’s not hurting anybody, so how can it be illegal?”

Pull out your copy of the Constitution, brush off the dust, and turn to Article 1, Section 8. Congress can, it says, it says, “… promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries …”
This led to copyright law, which gives artists the exclusive rights to their music from the moment of its creation until, generally, 70 years after the artist dies.

Whether you respect copyright law is irrelevant. What matters is that you know you are breaking the law.
“But M,” you continue, “CD sales are up across the nation! I personally buy a lot of the songs that I get from Napster. How can Napster be bad if it’s helping the record industry?”

True, according to official statistics, compact disc sales are up 16% nationally. But did you know that in areas around colleges and universities, sales are actually down 4%? That’s a huge reversal, in an area that usually sees high demand for music. Maybe you buy CDs based on what you hear on Napster, but for most college students Napster has the opposite effect. Besides, unless you go out and purchase every song you download, you’re still stealing.

“Yo, M. Scotty, beam this up: my ‘breaking the law’ be costin’ the suits nothin’. I listens to the shiznit, sure, but man I don’t like it enough to lay down the green! So it don’t count as stealing ‘cuz no one be losing no profit, right? Ya dig it?”

Yes sir, I think I “be digging it.” The problem is, there are no in-betweens here. If you listen to the music, you do enjoy it to some extent. So now, in all fairness to the artist, you should make a choice. Buy it or delete it.

In the end, knowing of the illegality of downloading copyrighted MP3s will do little to change anyone’s mind about it. And while the penalties for copyright infringement are harsh – up to 5 years in jail, up to $250,000 in fines, and possible statutory damages of up to $150,000 per song – most people have too few songs in their collection to worry about being prosecuted. So what it all comes down to is your own values. Is it right to steal? Or, put another way: how would you feel if you worked for years to establish yourself as a popular musician, spending untold fortunes on recording equipment, training, marketing, plus thousands of man hours on perfecting your craft, only to have your work ripped off by a pimply-faced teen?

MP3s, and the music-sharing services that let them flourish, are stunning technological achievements, and potentially invaluable tools for the promotion of capitalism and an increased atmosphere of creative thinking and competition. But as it stands now, Napster is nothing more than an accessory to theft.

For more info, check out www.stopnapster.com