Napster

4 Pages 960 Words

Is running a program like Napster ethical? The United States Government does not think so because lately they have been closing the doors on these programs. We will look at Mill’s Utilitarian principle, Kant’s End Principle, and Rawls three principles of Justice. Also we will see if these theories would be for Napster distributing music or against Napster.
Looking at Mill’s Utilitarian principle we see that it is the greatest happiness for the greatest amount of people. Mill’s probably would have agreed with Napster because a lot of people were happy with it. Considering how many people used it. Mill’s also implicates the defense of liberty. Such as freedom of speech, free market, and freedom to unite. Napster provided a free market of songs over the internet. Some say it was illegal others think it was other. In Mill’s eye’s it probably would have been alright to share the music because it made more people happy then mad.
In Kant’s End Principle he states that you should always treat people as you want to be treated. In other words it is referring to the Golden Rule of “Due unto others as you would do to them.” So I guess the owners of Napster would let people have the keys to there house or cars readily available. Just like they had songs readily available for people on there program. Kant would most likely think that Napster is wrong in more ways then one. It would be morally wrong in his eyes because you are also stealing from the people that took there time to produce the album and everyone that took there time to make the songs. They were stealing from people trying to make a living. This is definitely one way to look at Napster. But then you also have to look at how much money these artist make and realize who is stealing from whom. Sometimes the people may be getting stolen from but no one is forcing people to buy there records. This theory might be the best way to explain Napster’s wrong doing.
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