This weeks events has brought my old friend Napster back into the news. I cant turn on a radio station or enter into a water cooler conversation without the word Napster entering into topic.

Since misery loves company, Im inviting you to share mine. So let me just throw this out and say I love Napster and I think anyone who is against Napster is against freedom itself.

Now before you go and offer me your shovels so I can dig myself out of this now, very deep hole, let me explain.

It has been said that to download music when you dont own the album, is stealing. So lets think about that for a moment, why is it stealing? I'm not duplicating the CD and selling it, Im not competing or bootlegging their merchandise, yet it is somehow stealing?

To be fair, I'll play the Devils advocate for a moment. It has been argued that this is theft because the recording industry isn't making any royalties and yet you're getting to hit that play button without giving them a cent.

Well if its about royalties, then why arent used CD stores being sued? For instance, let us say I go out and purchase the new Counting Crows CD - off that initial sale the recording industry has made money. Now if I were to go to a used CD store and trade or sell it so someone else can buy my old CD the recording industry makes zero money at that point.

It is the same thing with Napster except we are removing the middleman so a third party (the used CD store) makes no money as well.

Ah, but wait with Napster you have two parties who in theory are listening to the same music at the same time, ie: that CD was never actually sold so now two, three, or a hundred people now listen to the track.

To that I say, does it matter who is listening to the music that has came off 'my' CD? and if it does matter, then is it really 'my' CD then? or is it just on loan to me from the RIAA?

Music sharing is a freedom and Ill tell you why its important we keep it this way. You see, the music industry wants very badly to make it so all music is licensed so eventually when you buy a CD you are really buying a license so that you and only you will be able to listen to that song from that purchase.

Now before you start calling me a wacko - lets think back to the DivX fiasco. This was the beginning of a scheme to make it so people wouldnt own copies of videos, but instead start the slippery slope of pay-per-use only.

What also makes me question the validity of the Napster Threat to the recording industry is if Napster is costing them all these millions of dollars in lost revenue, in lost royalties - then why did they post record high earnings last year?

Its always been said to just follow the money and youll find the truth. In the case of the RIAA versus Napster the math just doesnt add up.

Furthermore, lets look at history, the arguments being used against Napster in are the exact same arguments made twenty years ago by the movie industry when they wanted to ban VCRs suggesting that a high quality copy of the original would result in the downfall of their entire industry.

Now, I havent checked the movie industrys books lately, but I'm pretty sure they are doing just fine in the money making department.