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I'm not intimately familiar with how KaZaA, audiogalaxy, etc. work, so I can't comment on them specifically, but if they're anything like Napster, I don't see any legitimate reason to shut them down legally. I would _not_ want to become involved in any way with a company which knowingly profited from widespread copyright infringement, but I also don't think that these services should be shut down by the courts.

I don't condone piracy of any type, but I don't want to see technological progress influenced by heavy political contributors who do not fully understand the implications of their actions. Think about how hard the MPAA tried to kill the Sony Betamax and then consider how much profit its members have derived from videotape and DVD sales. If we ban everything that could possibly be used to violate copyrights, then we should be prepared to live in a world without tape recorders, xerox machines, paper, pens, printing presses, cameras, etc.

That's why I said 'avenues for piracy' which is what they are. Tape recorders, xerox machines, paper, pens, printing presses, cameras, etc. have never had the wide spread capabilities our internet does, so its a whole different game. And like CD burners, there are legitimate legal uses for those products, so they have flourished. The examples you gave of old files and permitted files being made available could easily be done through web pages providing these types of files legally. There are no legal offerings Napster gives that cannot easily be compensated for through regular web pages. Currently, there are no viable alternatives for "tape recorders, xerox machines, paper, pens, printing presses, cameras, etc." There are plenty of alternatives for the types of files you mentioned.
You say you don't condone piracy of any type, but that's what these programs encourage.

Its kind of like if every month, there were a huge convention where thousands of people got together and brought all their music and copied off what they wanted. You can bet that the arena they used would be stopped from hosting such activities. Only here its not thousands, its billions around the world. Napster and others are the arenas.

I look at it like this. The people who have spent years working hard to make it in the music industry are losing money because of sites like Napster. Real money, not like friends dubbing tapes from each other. Millions of downloads a day for free. I realize that bands don't make much off album sales, but they do make a little, and sale numbers give them leverage for what they get for tours. They have worked hard for the recognition they have finally achieved, and thus are entitled to the rewards. I would think some of our guitar toting participants would agree. If a band wants to make its songs available for free, fine, throw them on their web page. Easy as that.

In this case a somebody has blown the whistle: Janis Ian, who hit big with "Society's Child" in 1967 and "At Seventeen" in 1975.