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After all those years of being on many critics’ black list, in recent years Napster has come to truly redeem itself. It is no longer the infamous site that helped millions of college students and music fans the world over break copyright laws by facilitating millions of free music downloads. Who would have thought just a few years ago that Napster would someday be heralded as one of the most responsible and safety-conscious web sites on the World Wide Web today? That thought would have been laughable just a few years ago, but now it is a reliable. Napster recently received top honors from one of the world’s largest Internet safety organizations for providing a safe and consumer-friendly digital music experience for all. Who would have thought?

The prize was announced in March of 2005: The Wired Safety Group announced that Napster had won their annual, much-coveted 2005 Internet Visionary Award. After revamping the Napster brand completely, the new and completely legal Napster first launched in October of 2003. It quickly gained a strong reputation as one of the best digital music services on the web. Fully legitimate and boasting an impressive digital music song catalog, the new Napster was innovative, user-friendly, and most importantly for music lovers and past Napster fans, still a lot of fun. The Wired Safety Group gave their annual Internet Visionary Award to Napster for providing a safe and legal environment in which kids and young people can download their favorite music.

Since the original Napster was shut down after a long and arduous period of legal battles and lawsuits from several high profile music artists and the Record Industry Association of America, Napster eventually had to shut down its network for good. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and ended up on the auction block for several months. After various false starts, Roxio, the leading music software developer, eventually bought out Napster. The new Roxio-owned Napster quickly turned over a new leaf, emerging as one of the leaders in digital music subscription services on the web.

The new Napster was fully legitimate, and it offered its old fans a new, sleeker and completely legal way to download music. The Wired Safety Group awarded the new Napster with its prestigious award precisely because the site has offered a safe way for young people to download legally. Spokespersons for the Wired Safety Group have openly lauded the new Napster for helping to combat piracy. More specifically, the Wired Safety Group has applauded Napster for the innovative ways it has helped combat music piracy. For example, Napster has created new ways for fans to access all the music they want that extend beyond the basic a la carte music service that are offered by other digital music competitors on the Internet. The Wired Safety Group argues that basic a la carte music services encourage young people to try to find ways to download songs illegally. But many of Napster’s music services try to counteract this instinct by allowing young people to subscribe to services that allow them unlimited access to the entire Napster catalog of music.

The Wired Safety Group has been a vocal critic of music piracy and has been very vocal in the ongoing debate that has swirled around the issue of music piracy. The Wired Safety Group has actively sought to protect the rights of copyright holders while still protecting the privacy of Internet users’. The Wired Safety Group has also been actively involved in sponsoring programs, such as its popular peers2peers.org program, that teaches kids and young adults to respect copyright law and the rights of copyright holders.