Usually, I'm pretty good about making up my mind on issues, but when it comes to Napster, I find myself on the fence.

My heart says "Go Napster" and "Stick it to those greedy record companies." Hey, this is "power to the people."

My old buddy Yippee leader Abbie Hoffman, author of "Steal This Book" and the subject of the recent "Steal This Movie," is probably cheering from the grave.

But my brain tells me that Napster is fundamentally flawed from an ethical, legal and business point of view.

I thought about this as I sat at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, listening to attorneys for Napster and for the recording industry. Napster's lawyer David Boies, famous for successfully representing the Justice Department in its suit against Microsoft (MSFT), argued that Napster's activities are well within the scope of the copyright law. He claimed that it's fair use for individuals to share files as long as there is no compensation. He further argued that Napster is just a directory service without the tools to distinguish between music that can legally be copied and those files that are "infringing."

The music industry's site probably wouldn't be free, so it would still have a tough time competing with Napster or any other service that offered files without charge, but -- call me naive if you will -- I think a lot of users would prefer paying a small fee to access music from a site that was not only on the up and up but offered faster downloads, higher quality, and the assurances that the artists are getting fair compensation for their work.

I'm neither a judge nor a lawyer, but Boies' articulate arguments aside, it strikes me that Napster stands a very good chance of eventually being shut down by a federal judge.

I certainly agree that the music industry has been both selfish and stupid about the way it's handled Napster and just about every other aspect of digital music on the Internet, but -- like it or not -- they have the right, within reason, to control the distribution of their assets.

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Approximate Word count = 920
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)