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Looper's Delight
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I don't really see how Napster is much different than software companies and their struggles with cranked software. Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm sure there are plenty of people out there, like me, who would like to have an actual hard copy (CDs) of the music. The difference is that CDs don't cost several hundred dollars a copy like software does. So, buying a CD is not as big of a deal as buying an actual copy of some software. Also, after reading all of the posts here on coding methods, MP3's (and most others?) use data compression and so it seems to me that no matter how good they are, they are not going to be the same fidelity as an original CD. Same with cassettes. They usually have horrible quality compared to the real thing but that never stopped anyone. And like the others have said, it helped sales of real copies of music rather than hurt it. The HIFI market is going to even higher fidelity with things like HDCDs which are 20 bit instead of 16 bit (not sure about sampling rate, 48kHz?). And there is all kinds of talk of even higher fidelity with things like audio DVDs and other things. We are talking 24+ bit and 88.2 or 96kHz and higher sampling rates. That is a lot of memory. I don't really see how MP3's and the like can compete with that kind of "quality". Napster does raise some interesting ideas about the future of stereo systems. Maybe in the not too distant future you can get into your car and pop in a Zip disk and listen to music you downloaded the night before. Just a thought. Ben Porter. What are you N2? Choose from 150 free e-mail addresses. http://www.n2mail.com