Napster has served music lovers, online, for quite a while. It was the most popular MP3 downloading utility before the legal issues concerning it, were addressed by the music industry in the west. I do feel that providing free music online, adversely affects the music industry and artists in particular, who put in considerable efforts before releasing their work.
However banning Napster is not the solution to the problem. There are several’file-sharing’ utilities and websites, online, which provide, not only free MP3’s, but also movies, music videos, applications, games, files, etc. for downloads. A mammoth effort will be required to control this problem. Infact, practically speaking, it is nearly impossible to stop free music downloads by users online, through peer-to-peer networks. It will require some innovative thinking and stringent measures to solve this problem facing the music industry.