NapsterSupport

Artist's Opinions

"I just want my music to be out, and that's always been the main priority. It was never really about getting paid. It was just getting people to hear my music and say, 'Hey, I like your song.' So if Napster wants to put my song out so people can download it or whatever, let 'em do it."

-- Billy Joe Armstrong (Green Day), Reuters, 2/12/2001

"Napster: It is the future, in my opinion. That's the way music is going to be communicated around the world. The most important thing now is to embrace it, and that was the spirit by which we did this co-promotion."

-- Dave Matthews (Dave Matthews Band), referring to his band's recent Featured Music promotion with Napster, Billboard.com, 2/9/2001

"Most people I know who use Napster listen to stuff they've never heard before. And then they get psyched and go out and buy the damn records. It's more like a sampler."

- Ian MacKaye, recording artist, Fugazi and co-owner of Dischord Records, Salon.com, 1/8/2001

"[Napster] makes artists ask why they are not in control of what they are doing. Artists of any worth or strength will rise up and take control of the situation."

-- Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics

"We believe that the Internet and Napster should not be ignored by the music industry as tools to promote awareness for bands and market music."

-- Fred Durst (Limp Bizkit)

"The cool thing about Napster is that it...encourages enthusiasm for music in a way that the music industry has long forgotten to do."

-- Thom Yorke (Radiohead), 10/9/2000

"There are a lot of bigger problems in the world than whether Napster succeeds or fails...I don't think there is a malice coming out of Napster. We allowed people to tape our concerts from the beginning, and the record company questioned us about allowing that. But my thinking was that it only makes people want to buy more and increases the devotion of people who are going to listen to us."

-- Dave Matthews (Dave Matthews Band), Rolling Stone, 7/21/2000

"Stealing our copyright provisions in the dead of night when no-one is looking is piracy. It's not piracy when kids swap music over the Internet using Napster. There were one billion downloads last year but music sales are way up, so how is Napster hurting the music industry? It's not. The only people who are scared of Napster are the people who have filler on their albums and are scared that if people hear more than one single they're not going to buy the album."

-- Courtney Love, NME, 6/29/2000

"We should think of (Napster) as a new kind of radio--a promotional tool that can help artists who don't have the opportunity to get their music played on mainstream radio or on MTV,"

-- Chuck D, New York Times, 4/30/2000

"Most people I know who listen to a lot of MP3s will download a lot of different songs. And if they like the song, they'll go out and buy the album. The record company doesn't want me to say this, but out of the millions of MP3 files that are out there, if someone chooses to download one of my songs or an album of mine, I'm very flattered."

-- Moby, Macaddict.com

"The Edge is very pro-Napster, actually," Bono says. "He thinks that as long as people are using their computers for music, and not playing mindless games, that's good. My feeling," he adds, "is that it's cool for people to share our music -- as long as no one is making money from the process. We tell people who come to our concerts that they can tape the shows if they want. I think it's cool that people are so passionate about our music -- especially about this new album, quite honestly."

-- Bono on The Edge (U2), Billboard.com, 9/29/2000

"It is a good way to promote your music, but copyright and things of that sort are something that will have to be worked out and they will be worked out. I remember when they didn't want you to have a VCR, but they worked it out and I think for the best. Smart people always get together and work it out."

-- B.B. King, Yahoo Entertainment News, 9/13/2000

"We have just finished a tour, we played in Barcelona, the next day the entire performance was up on Napster and three weeks later when we got to play in Israel the audience knew the words to all the new songs and it was wonderful. Digital music is just one of many things that contribute to an artist getting their message across and of course it is going to change record companies are going to have to embrace it and change with it and find different ways of getting revenue, maybe using Napster as a business model for their own on-line thing."

-- Colin Greenwood (Radiohead), NME, 9/28/2000

"We're not afraid of the Internet. We think it's a very cool way to reach our fans. If a band sells 12 million albums, what are we supposed to say? Oh, maybe we could have sold 13 million if we had just been Internet Nazis. Frankly, at a certain point, you have to say. Hey, let the people have the music."

-- Dexter Holland (Offspring), Inside.com, 9/15/2000

"I think it's a good idea because it's people trading music. It has nothing to do with industry or finance, it's just people that want music and there's nothing wrong with that. It's the same as someone turning on the f****** radio, it's the same as someone putting a cassette in a cassette deck when the BBC plays a special radio session. I don't think it's a crime, it's been going on for years. It's the same as people making tapes for each other. The industry is more threatened by it because it's the worldwide web and it's a broader scope of trading, but I don't think it's such a f******* horrible thing. The first thing we should do is get all the f****** millionaires to shut their mouths, stop bitching about the 25 cents a time they're losing."

-- Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters), dotmusic.com, 9/15/2000

"I can't believe Napster might be shut down. Music is for everybody. When people get excited about it, whether from hearing it on the radio or borrowing a record from a friend, or accessing it through Napster, they buy records and come out to shows."

-- Ben Folds (Ben Folds Five), Entertainment Weekly, 8/11/2000

"What record companies don't really understand is that Napster is just one illustration of the growing frustration over how much the record companies control what music people get 2 hear < over how the air waves, record labels and record stores, which r now all part of this 'system' that recording companies have pretty much succeeded in establishing, r becoming increasingly dominated by musical "products" 2 the detriment of real music. Y should the record company have such control over how he, the music lover, wants 2 xperience the music?... >From the point of view of the real music lover, what's currently going on can only b viewed as an xciting new development in the history of music. And, 4tunately 4 him, there does not seem 2 b anything the old record companies can do about preventing this evolution from happening."

-- Prince, NPGonlineLTD.com

"The amount of time companies spend stressing about getting a record on radio, you would think that the idea of some big, global listening post would make perfect sense. And while enough people enjoy the social interaction of going into a record shop and buying something to keep and cherish, I don't see why we can't all live in one big happy music-sharing world."

-- Damian Harris (owner of SKINT) (Fatboy Slim's label), NME, 9/8/2000

"When I worked 9 to 5, i expected to get a paycheck everyweek. It's the same with music. If I'm putting my heart and all my time into my music, i expect to get rewared for that. And if you can afford to have a computer, you can afford to pay $16 for my...CD."

-- Eminem, News.findlaw.com

"...probably the most serious thing that can undermine an artist's catalog."

--Jimmy Buffet, News.findlaw.com

"I don't think that a lot of people who are getting the music for free are thinking about whom it's affecting. There have been these proverbial injustices by record companies against artist, so maybe people feel that they're helping the artist out by not paying record companies, their 85 percent. But they're not only taking away the 85 percent from the record companies, they're taking away the small percentage that's given to the artist."

--Alanis Morissette, ArtistsAgainstPiracy.com

"Musicans love the isea of all music being vailible to all people, but without fair payment, many musicains would have to find other ways to make a living."

--Peter Gabriel, ArtistsAgainstPiracy.com

"All we have ever asked is that artists be able to control how, when and in what form their creativity is distributed through these channels. This is something that Napster has continually refused to do. Now the court has made that decision for them."

--Metallica's response after the 9th Circuit Court of Apeals made their ruling