Illegal downloading of songs is all the rage these days but should the record companies be up in arms? In the beginning there was Thomas Edison's phonograph with the cylindrical records that, although amazing for their time, sounded awful. There was no electronic amplification and the player had to cranked by hand to produce sound. But it was recorded music (or speech). Next came the record disk in 78 and 45 and 33 rpm (revolutions per minute) speeds. The quality of the sound steadily improved over the years as the stylus (or cartridge) changed from crystal to ceramic to magnetic. More improvement came with the changes in stylus from metal (yes metal!) to sapphire to diamond.

Other changes to the recording industry included improvements to the stereo systmes used to play and amplify the music. Monorail gave way to stereo and 4 channel systems. Then came surround sound and 5,6,7:1 systems. Vacuum tubes were replaced by transistors and then stereo systems morphed into min-computer systems. In fact, most modern computers sound better than just about any music system from 10-15 years ago.

The mediums for recorded music have changed over the years as well. Cassette tapes were introduced that could not only be played but recorded to as well. Albums could then be copied from friends for free but the quality suffered through the recording process. 8-track casette tapes were also available but never really caught on and recording on them even less so.

Around 1982 compact discs were introduced to consumers to replace the vinyl record. For a very ling time CD's and records were sold side-by-side in the record stores with the records slowly disappearing from the shelves. Since records needed time to "recover" between sessions you could only listen to a song so many times per day. Also records were prone to scratching. Some record companies responded by putting out limited pressing record that were more expensive and produced better quality sound. CD's could be played over and over again with no degrading of quality since there was no physical contact with the disc. A laser read the digital data stored on the CD. There was a protective layer between the elements and the data. Being in a digital format the CD could also be read from a multimedia computer and saved to a hard drive. Super audio cd's (SACD) came out later.

By 1993 MP3's were available on the internet but only the most advanced users had even heard of them or could play them. Mp3's quickly gained popularity because they were free and didn't take up valuable and expensive space on your computer. MP3 sites sprung up where users could easly download the songs they wanted for free. The release of Napster in 1999 changed everyting. The free application allowed users to search for and download songs with ease. Files were shared amongst users and even the newest and yougest computer users could figure out how to get free music.

The problem with MP3's, however, is that the quality of the sound is poor. These files are recorded with much of the data stripped away so that the resulting music file sounds terrible. MP3's can also be recorded at different bit rates so the quality of the songs on the file-sharing networks can vary tremendously. Downloading songs from peer-to-peer systems can also give you more spyware and virus than you would ever want. It is for these reasons that the record companies should emprace the free filesharing systems. Users can find songs that they heard on the radio (not the best quality either) and verify which songs they like. Listeners can also find new artists here as well. On Napster there was a feature that you could look at the songs a particular user had in their filesystems. Very often if a user liked the same songs as you then they had similar tastes. I've discoverd hundreds of new artist buy searching users's lists of favorites. Once I've found a song or artist I like then I buy the CD since that is where I get the absolute best quality sound for the money. There is nothing worse than trying to listen to a low-quality MP3 - even when it's free.