In the constant evolution of our existence, new inventions are created to enhance our life and bring us what we want in a faster, cheaper and more efficient manner. And, in the history of evolution, a nineteen year old boy named Shawn Fanning created Napster – a program that enabled web “surfers” to download their favorite songs and store them on their computer free of charge.

In the beginning, Napster was an underground privilege known only to hardcore Internet gurus. Then, Napster became so mainstream and so well-known – that Fanning wound up going from an Internet hero to a major threat to the music industry – and wound up in Supreme Court being sued for millions of dollars by such names as Puff Daddy and Metallica.

And in the end – the nineteen year old “kid” that was smart enough to create such a revolutionary program was beat down by the big boys and forced to close shop forever – leaving millions of Napster users with nothing to download – until now.

As I wrote in my column entitled, No, They Can’t Take That Away From Me which I published on July 28, 2000, “If Napster didn’t do it, someone else would have…and probably will again.” Sure enough – I was right – because from the death of Napster – comes the rise of Morpheus.

A program that is almost identical to Napster, Morpheus allows you to download MP3 files from other Morpheus users just like Napster. These files can be saved on either your hard drive or your on-line Morpheus playlist, just like Napster. And I am sure that just like Napster – the money hungry killjoys that ruined the life of an ambitious nineteen year old rather then praising him for his intelligence and ability will no doubt do the same thing to the creator of Morpheus once they get wind of it.

But the fact that another practically identical program to Napster is now on the web proves my point that once the technology is there – you can’t just squash it and expect it to never be used again. So this modern day Prohibition against MP3s is nothing but a futile attempt by these killjoys to buy a month or two between the destruction of one program and the creation of another. And hopefully one day – these killjoys that insist on trying to keep this technology from us will realize that they are fighting a losing battle that they can never possibly win – because if Morpheus came after Napster’s demise – don’t you think that if they take down Morpheus – that the same thing will happen again?