I believe that it was greed that caused the record companies to be opposed to Napster, but not just a financial type of greed. It was greed also along the lines of them wanting to control the music industry. Napster was a threat to them because it exposed people to new types of music, and the record companies were more uncertain about a marketplace which would contain more alternative types of music. They preferred a stable musical climate in which their sales and growth were relatively predictable. Now, with millions of people exposed to new types of music, they would no longer be able to exploit the market in a predictable way. And they could no longer take it easy, and throw out their trash onto the radio stations with each generation's version of "the backstreet boys", playing over and again, and expect their sales to remain steady.
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