Ed, I respect your opinion...............until the last two lines. That sounded a little too preachy to me...makes want to say, "Gee Dad, I never thought of it that way". So instead I will just repeat from above. Bite me. I respect that someone might want to judge before they buy. Sound clips in the form of downloadable files work fine for that. But there is a reason why that is just one or two songs and just parts of them, at that. BECAUSE THE ARTIST DOESN'T WANT TO GET RIPPED OFF!!!!!! I am sure you are honorable Zeb/Ed, and would NEVER download something for free, eh? You must be hell on wheels with shareware. Oh, gosh, that's right............most shareware now has a time limit and then it expires and can't be renewed.........wonder why? Did you read Stephen King's online book? You really ought..........oh...........shit........he quit publishing it because folks weren't honoring the "honor" system"...........damn, too bad cause, hey, problably would have made him more popular.............What's the point.........just this. Intellectual property is property. I have a right to be compensated. It is no different than a CD that I sell at my shows. Your arguments don't hold water.

Seamus, teach your son. I am sure you do. True that tapes can be copied, but the similarity ends there. In order to copy tapes, one must be in the proximity of a "master". But with Napster, One must simply go up on the web and voila. The problem before was localized. Imagine yourself a college student watching a band perform, who decided that they wanted the music and knew it was available for free on the web. You going to part with the bucks?

I repeat..........All attempts to justify this are so you can rationalize stealing the fruits of someone elses labor. For most of my life I have had to do battle with big business. Here, I am doing it again. But it seems they have allies this time. Average folks who want to cut the artists out. Ain't sitting by for this, folks. It is wrong.

Mick