It depends on what the meaning of the words 'is' is...

We've all had that debate. You know, the one that never ends in any type of solution. Let's just call it "To steal, or not to steal." "But wait now", you might say, "who says it's stealing in the first place?" Well believe it or not, downloading just one song off any Peer to Peer application is literally by law considered stealing. Ripping one song off of a friends CD is by law considered stealing. People have been charged, and convicted of "stealing music."



Long gone are the days when Napster was originated. Every song you could even think of... even if you had never owned the CD in your life... it was yours for the taking... free of charge. Gone were the days of having to buy a whole CD for that one single you loved... gone were the days where you couldn't preview before you buy. Right? Wrong.

Within only a short time, Napster was taken to trial and found guilty of copyright infringement by record companies. Napster was shut down almost immediately following. The bandwagon of "music for free" advocates were livid. "You mean I actually have to PAY for my music again?"

Well in a sense, they never were 'allowed' by any law to download artists' material free of charge. It's always been exactly what it is now: stealing.

So where is Napster now? Are there legal alternatives to 'stealing?' And most importantly, what can I do if I still feel like stealing? Because let's be honest... sometimes a song really just isn't worth paying for right?

Well Napster is back (owned by software company Roxio), and believe it or not, bigger than ever. With a two million song catalog and over 500,000 paying subscribers... it definitely is a player in the online music scene. For $14.95 a month, you can download an unlimited amount of those 2,000,000 songs and have access to them all offline. There is a very large 'but,' however. The very second you stop paying that monthly fee... POOF! Your entire music library you so diligently downloaded is now no longer yours.

Many critics believe that this is what makes other music stores so much more appealing. No subscription service, download what you want, and OWN it forever. Some would rather keep stealing with programs like LimeWire, Kazaa, and the like.

Although the saga is far from over, many believe Napster is still far from the top and has quite a lot of catching up to do before it's considered a threat to other music stores like Apple Computer's iTunes.