Downloading music on the internet has become a big controversial issue over the past years. The question is: Is it okay? I think yes. Music is a creative process (#3), that should be shared and enjoyed by as many people as possible. However record companies around the world believe that they should get money for every single song (or album) released, either online or offline. This has caused a big battle with music-buying consumers and greedy record companies and artists.
             The controversy started in early 1999, when a program called Napster appeared on the Internet. The program allowed various online users to search and trade files called MP3s. MP3s are small sized, computer files which are songs that can reach sounds up to CD-Quality. At Millions of people traded songs daily. While lesser known acts and bands supported Napter, many superstar acts were angry about Napster. Rock band, Metallica, were so outraged that hundreds of their songs were being traded online, that they sued Napster in spring of 2000. Many lawsuits followed, and in early 2001 Napster finally shut down. However, with it's "death" other peer-to-peer services were created, the most popular being WinMX and Kazaa.
             Ever since Napster, the RIAA (Recording Industry of America) have been shutting down sites (15,000 total) which had one or more music files of any type. They think that going by this approach, it will make it harder for consumers to find the music, and will have go out and buy the CDs. Also many record companies are now adding copy-protection to some of their new releases. This will prevent consumers burning the CD onto their computers. However, some of these discs have been reported not to work in some consumers computers, so if the computer was their only source for a CD player, they couldn't listen to their favorite artist.
             One reason why I choose to download my music on the internet, instead of purchasing it at the store is b...