Editing Napster (section)

===Promotional power===
[[Image:Napster Unique Users.svg|thumb|right|300px|Napster peaked in February 2001]]

Along with the accusations that Napster was hurting the sales of the record industry, some felt just the opposite, that file trading on Napster stimulated, rather than hurt, sales. Some evidence may have come in July 2000 when tracks from [[England|English]] rock band [[Radiohead]]'s album ''[[Kid A]]'' found their way to Napster three weeks before the album's release. Unlike Madonna, Dr. Dre, or Metallica, Radiohead had never hit the top 20 in the US. Furthermore, ''Kid A'' was an album without any [[Single (music)|singles]] released, and received relatively little radio [[airplay]]. By the time of the album's release, the album was estimated to have been downloaded for free by millions of people worldwide, and in October 2000 ''Kid A'' captured the number one spot on the [[Billboard 200|''Billboard'' 200]] sales chart in its debut week. According to [[Richard Menta]] of ''[[MP3 Newswire]]'',<ref>{{cite news | last=Menta | first=Richard | title=Did Napster Take Radiohead's New Album to Number 1? | date=October 28, 2000 | publisher=MP3 Newswire | url=http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2000/radiohead.html | access-date=January 21, 2005 | archive-date=January 4, 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180104132519/http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2000/radiohead.html | url-status=dead }}</ref> the effect of Napster in this instance was isolated from other elements that could be credited for driving sales, and the album's unexpected success suggested that Napster was a good promotional tool for music.

Since 2000, many musical artists, particularly those not signed to major labels and without access to traditional mass media outlets such as radio and television, have said that Napster and successive Internet file-sharing networks have helped get their music heard, spread word of mouth, and may have improved their sales in the long term.{{Citation needed|date=September 2007}} One such musician to publicly defend Napster as a promotional tool for independent artists was DJ Xealot, who became directly involved in the 2000 A&M Records Lawsuit.<ref name="Declaration of D.J. Xealot in Supp. of. Napster">{{cite web |title=Case Nos. C 99-5183 and C 00-0074 MHP (ADR) |url=http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/napster/napster/dec_xeal.pdf |work=[[FindLaw.com]] |access-date=February 12, 2009 |archive-date=February 14, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060214000323/http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/napster/napster/dec_xeal.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Chuck D]] from [[Public Enemy (band)|Public Enemy]] also came out and publicly supported Napster.<ref>{{cite news | title=Rapper Chuck D throws weight behind Napster | date=May 1, 2000 | publisher=Cnet News | url=http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-239917.html | access-date=February 17, 2009 | archive-date=July 11, 2012 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120711140750/http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-239917.html | url-status=live }}</ref>