Face the Music

File Sharing By Ehtisham Malik The company Napsterâ„ ¢ made headlines in the music file sharing revolution by letting people share music for free. ) Napsterâ„ ¢ and other services like it soon attracted the attention of the record companies. Lawsuits were filed to stop illegal music file sharing, and Napster was forced to stop. After these lawsuits, the Apple iPod  ® music player changed the way people listened to music. The iPod player was small and portable. It allowed people to carry their music with them wherever they went. Apple then introduced ITunes ® on the Internet.Their reasoning was that many people who were downloading music illegally would be willing to pay a small fee to get the music legally. Apple ® saw people were interested, and was the first to market a new music player and a legal music download service. About 70 percent of music downloaders use ITunes ®. Competitors have been slow to catch up, but there are new sites popping up everyday. Companies s uch as Wal-Mart ®, Musicmatch ®, Real Networks’ Rhapsodyâ„ ¢, and BuyMusic all have music-sharing Web sites. Napsterâ„ ¢ reemerged as a pay-for-music site. This well-known music site hopes that their brand name will lead to instant market sales and success.If you download music from the Internet, make sure to use a legal download site, such as those from the companies above. Always follow copyright guidelines to make sure that you are downloading music properly. Copyright Guidelines Can you legally download music for free? Yes, but only you can play or burn the music to a CD. Can you legally download music and then sell it? No, because you are unauthorized to distribute that music. Can you copy a store-bought CD from a friend? No, due to the copyright on the CD, you need to pay for it to burn a copy, or else you are stealing. All products names are trademarks of their respective companies.