> Though, to play devil's advocate:
> What about photocopiers? ;-) Should we ban photocopiers because they can be used to make illegal copies of texts? (Not *every* file on Napster is illegal, surely? There must be some people who use it to distribute their own, original work, right?)

People commit crimes, not things. This is why photocopiers are ok, why dual VCRs are ok, and why the law against distributing DVD decryption algorithms is nutso wrong.

However, Napster is not "a photocopier," it is a single privately-owned business entity. If a court of law determines that the people who operate Napster have been irresponsible about taking reasonable precautions about removing copyrighted material from their service (ha!) then they have every right to shut them down, and I'm sort of amazed that hasn't happened already.