How does Napster work and why is there such a huge fight around it right now?
If you have read the HSW article entitled How MP3 Files Work , then you are familiar with the MP3 format for digital music. You know that you can download MP3 files from the Internet and play them on your computer, listen to them on a portable MP3 player or even burn your own CDs. The advantage of the MP3 format is that it makes song files small enough to move around on the Internet in a reasonable amount of time. The initial MP3 craze was fueled by sites like mp3.com. On these sites, anyone can upload a song. However, the sites cannot legally store or distribute copyrighted material — that would be copyright infringement, which is illegal. So all of the songs that you find on mp3.com (and sites like it) are either public domain songs, songs uploaded by artists who are trying to get exposure, or songs released by record companies trying to build interest in a CD. Napster is a different way to distribute MP3 files. Instead of storing the songs on a central computer, the songs live on u
