The Recording industry claims that it has lost over $10 billion last year due to Napster's service. This does not seem possible to us because the recording industry only made $14 billion in 1999. If that was true than the recording industry should have made roughly $24 billion. It seems very hard to believe that in a

Our Opinion
Napster is a not a threat to the music industry. Since the advent of Napster, the music industry has had an increase in sales. Most people use Napster as a way of previewing songs before they buy the song's album. I have a lot of friends who listen to punk music. They like using Napster because they can find new punk bands, that would, normally, be hard to find, and then buy their music.
Metallica initiated the lawsuits against napster and many other artists joined the bandwagon. "And Justice for All," was a title of one of their hottest albums and now it seems they are only fighting for the justice of their own pockets. It has always been my impression that artists make their music for the fans to enjoy, now it appears they have one thing on their mind, MONEY.

world without Napster, people would spend $10 billion on music, which would be almost doubling the recording industry's profits (Infoworld, may 1, 2000 - "Net Profit").

When the radio first came out musicians became worried because now anyone could hear their music if they owned or had access to a radio, but we still have radio's today. The movie industry had similar worry was when VCR's were introduced. There was a lawsuit that went all the way to the Supreme Court, eventually ruling that VCR's were legal (news.findlaw.com). Napster provides "new artists a way to distribute and promote their music directly to a huge community of fans worldwide," as stated by Napster's attorney Laurence Pulgram (CNN.com).