Catherine Bell

The general manager of Chrysalis Music responds to a leading article that urged the music industry to lower prices to compete with internet sites such as Napster

I have stolen the copy of The Independent that I am reading today, as I found that it was just more "convenient" for me not to pay for it.

I have stolen the copy of The Independent that I am reading today, as I found that it was just more "convenient" for me not to pay for it.

I know that no one will mind this, as The Independent clearly supports the view that if it is more "convenient" for a consumer to download a record for free from Napster, Gnutella and/or Freenet, rather than paying royalties to the songwriters and performers who appear on the record, then that is justification enough for the theft.

When hundreds of thousands of songwriters, arrangers, composers, musicians, performers, recording engineers and music producers lose their livelihoods and their jobs because they are no longer paid for the music they create, as a result, at least in part, of the media's condoning (or, in the case of The Independent, actively supporting) such illegal activity, and when society as a whole is immeasurably poorer because music is no longer created, I too will be raising my glass to the god of "convenience".

There are in existence many legitimate websites where music can be downloaded, in return for which the songwriters and the musicians and all the other people involved get paid for their creations. These websites are just as "convenient" as Napster is. However, I guess that they don't make for a story that is as "sexy" as that of a 19-year-old creating the software that prevents songwriters, musicians etc from getting paid.

Funnily enough, I would have thought that journalists - including the writer of The Independent's leading article on the Napster situation - have something in common with songwriters, composers, musicians, performers and the like, in that they too get paid (or should get paid) for the intellectual property that they create.