Recently, Napster, Inc., the online song sharing company came very close to being shut down for copyright infringement. I believe that it would be a mistake to shut down these online, song-sharing, companies as they provide a number of benefits to society. Some examples of these benefits include exposing listeners to a wider variety of music and not limiting their listening to one or two particular types of music as well as providing new bands and artists that are not yet as widely known a way to get their music exposed faster. Companies like Napster and MP3.com give bands and artists the ability to test new types of music and judge listener appreciation by the amount of downloads. CD sales since Napster became popular have also increased. After a fair amount of research I believe that companies such as these should be allowed to continue sharing songs as the benefits they provide outweigh the negative aspects.
             Napster is an online, music-trading program created by Shawn Fanning, a student at Northeastern University. Fanning developed the program in January of 1999 and after the immediate success of the beta version, realized its commercial potential and decided to pursue the development of the program and company full time. The company, Napster, Inc., was founded in May 1999. The program is designed to combine the practicality and convenience of sharing personal music files with the community atmosphere experienced in Internet Relay Chat (IRC).
             Early December 1999 saw the first of a number of lawsuits against Napster. The Recording Industry of America Association (RIAA) filed the first suit. They accused Napster of "operating a haven for music piracy on an unprecedented scale" (Sonic.net). Artists such as Metallica have also jumped on the bandwagon to shut Napster down and/or make it tougher for user to trade copyrighted music on Napster and lik
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