A nineteen-year-old entrepreneur, named Shawn Fanning, created Napster in 1999 as an elaborate plan to download music better from the Internet. Since its creation, Napster has caught on in the cyber world like wildfire. Ask any college student if he or she has heard of this company and you will hear a resounding "YES!". Napster is a music file (MP3) downloader for the Internet that allows users to find other users MP3's and downloads them directly from the other user's computer. Since college is unofficially very music oriented many college students love this program for its capability to download free popular music off of the net. The future of Napster, though, is undecided.
             In the past three months Napster has been under unbelievable crossfire from the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) because of the services that they offer to their online customers. The RIAA contends that Napster's "online-sharing" compares to mass copyright infringement. This would basically mean that Napster is illegally aiding users in the unlawful "stealing" of music profits from artists. "To the music industry downloading a song via Napster is akin to stealing a record from a music store. But fans say they're simply sampling new music, as they would at an in-store listening station"(qted. Graham). Artists and the RIAA both argue that this unlawful practice is causing CD sales to drop and then in turn causing the record companies and the artists to lose money. The RIAA has even done studies that supposedly prove that record sales have went down as a result of Napster coming into existence. Recently the RIAA even sued Napster with the intent to get it shut down. They won the trial, but as of right now Napster will be allowed to operate during the appeals process.
             Napster retaliates by saying that the service that they offer is merely a preview service like
             ...