I had no intention to violate the purpose or spirit of this BBS. I thought I was giving something to the empeg community. I was taken aback and a little hurt by the objection. But I'll take it off the board if it's not wanted.

I'm sorry you were hurt, but I don't feel that your apparent surprise is justified. If you were not prepared to receive this kind of feedback, then honestly you should not have made your announcement.

It is well understood that the primary purpose of Napster is to locate and download music that one has not already secured the legal right to possess; and to do so in a way that is difficult to track. The stated purpose may sound clean and innocent, but nobody on this BBS, including you, is fooling himself/herself about that.

It is also illegal to intentionally support someone else's illegal activity. You are clearly intelligent enough to know that illegal activity would occur on your Napigator link. So arguments like "what people do with music they download from me is their business" are simply wrong. It's your business too, particularly if a prosecutor goes sniffing.

To some, it's important to differentiate between what is ethically and morally wrong and what is legally wrong. You may have very honorable reasons for using a trading system like Napster. From what you've described, you're an upstanding fellow and you ultimately don't want to deprive artists of their royalties. That's great, and you may have your debates around that issue. But the legality issue does not go away because of that.


Michael Grant
12GB Green
080000266