berge: You understand this issue well.
The thing about Napster that really made the whole "era" great, other than the free-access, was that you could find alternate mixes, rare (certainly unavailable for purchase, elsewhere) recordings, unauthorized concert recordings and music curios that dedicated fanatics would post on the site. It was like the internet in 1993, with a spirit of sharing that is missing from current sites both "free" as well as authorized. It is OVER, now, and the fever that once drove Napster, and made for those wild predictions about the public's desire for downloaded music is no longer an engine for change, IMO.