I think it's high time we had a good discussion/debate about a subject that isn't poetry. Plus, this issue just now came up for me last week.

Napster: Is it legal, illegal, or confusing? Is it right, wrong, both, or neither? Should we do anything about it? What? I found each of these questions to have important distinctions for this issue.

My brother made a CD of his absolute favorite songs by downloading them and ripping it. He felt no compunctions to begin with, but then, in his usual manner, he thought about it much more than we would have preferred, and he talked about it constantly. After discussion, we agreed that it amounted to theft. We split on the remedy. I'll present only my own perspective, but I'd bet somebody will disagree and have some good points.

My opinion was that, in the case of Napster and similar programs, the solution could be worse than the problem. If Napster were shut down, I'm sure that there would be several generic copies widely available by the next day. I can think of no effective way to determine in transfer whether a string of 1's and 0's represents music, especially considering the increasingly numerous methods and formats available to swap and send files. It seems to me that the only surefire fix would be a filter of sorts at the final stage: probably in speakers. We'd need to hardwire digital speakers to only play music with electronically-nontransferable proof-of-purchase coded into it. But then, that would require us to also code proof-of-originality into whatever sound files amateurs make. But how's a computer to tell if a file breaks copyright? Perhaps a bureau or company would be necessary to register sound files. If a bureau, it would be hideously huge, bloated, rife with error and corruption; if a business, the government would have unfairly given out monopolies to a select few. It's absurd, but it seems like a slippery slope politicians would be all too happy to play on.

A possible workaround is to subsidize musicians with a tax on all audio equipment: CDs, CD players, MP3 players, computers, speakers, radios, microphones, Internet access, etc. But then, how does one discover which artist's songs are being downloaded? Another electronic filter? What about other forms of copyrights--say, the texts of books?

Thus, the only thing I can think of to do is to encourage responsibility on the individual level. If it's OK with a particular group to distribute free copies, then go ahead. If they want the royalties for their work, then leave it be. I still consider it perfectly acceptable to (1) make personal copies of music I already own, and (2) download a song onto my computer temporarily to hear if I like it, so I know whether or not to shell out the money for a CD.

Your turn. Does anyone out there write music for a living and have thoughts to share?

gab"For free, of course"by