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Napster Introduces Subscription Charge
Simon Cozens writes "The BBC is reporting that Napster is introducing a subscription charge to pay off the music industry. " And the real question is what percentage of
Napster users will shell out the clams vs moving to OpenNap or Gnutella.
Funny, I just got this news item through a wormhole in the space-time
continuum:
NAPSTER SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE GOES LIVE
June 16th, 2001
Further to CEO Hank Barry's predictions earlier this year, Napster Inc. (a
wholly-owned subsidiary of TimeWarner-AOL-Bertelsmann-Universal) started
charging users to log onto their popular file sharing service. Since its
launch in 1998, 60 million users have created accounts.
The new subscription-based service, which entirely replaces the previously
free version of Napster, was launched at midnight last night. For a mere ten
dollars a month, users are given unlimited access to the Napster service and
the shared files of other users.
In the 18 hours since the launch, three users have subscribed. One of them,
"br1tneyD00D", was quoted earlier as saying "ne1 got nud brit pics...
thanks... and what is this opennap thing that every1 talks about".
Asked if he was worried by the sudden drop in Napster usage, Mr Barry
replied "See this desk? Real mahogany. Yours for two hundred bucks. Really,
you can walk out with it now. Okay, one hundred, but you're twisting my
arm."
-- Yoz
This, I have to say, is a novel concept; paying a middle man when there (technically) isn't one.
If Alice wants to download a Metallica tune from Bob, I don't really see them shelling out the $$$ for Napster. But if Alice would be free to download the same tunes from reliable, comprehensive and fast Napster MP3 archives, the story might be different. Is Napster just dumping the whole P2P concept and beginning the transformation into plain vanilla MP3 distributor?
Marko Karppinen
Has anyone heard anything relating to price? I mean, we all knew a subscription fee was coming, so this news is really no surprise. But I want to know how much they plan to charge.
On top of that, are they going to lock out systems like OpenNap? There are a few servers that have at least as many songs as the official servers, so won't everyone just start using those?
Really, it isn't all that bad. As long as the fee isn't too large, using Napster will stay easily be less expensive than purchasing albums at the store or even online. Perhaps they will even make it legal, selling individual tracks at pennies on the dollar.
What has changed is that now the Napster has become one of the first, real distribution channels for commercial music. I guess that those who used Napster mainly to download music that they hadn't bought will move on to OpenNap. Those who used it to sample music before buying it on CD, will pay the subscription fee. I know I will.
What has changed is that now the Napster has become one of the first, real electronic distribution channels for commercial music. I guess that those who used Napster mainly to download music that they hadn't bought will move on to OpenNap. Those who used it to sample music before buying it, will pay the subscription fee. I know I will.
First off, I'm not one of the guys that downloads songs just to have them...I download songs that I already own, and the very occasional single that I wouldn't buy in a store.
There is no way that I'm going to pay twice for songs that I've purchased legally already. I am all for supporting the artists, but not twice.
My $0.02
-Ben
Say what you mean, mean what you say! But please know what #$@% you are talking about!
Its kind of odd that their charging, I mean we're putting our mp3s on their service and their charging us for it? We should be charging them, we're the ones keeping the service alive by going on it. So we have to charge now to download other people's mp3s, I think their should be something where if you put x amount of mp3s on the service you only have to pay x amount of dollars. Just my two cents.
"And Mr Barry maintains that record sales are rising: 'If you give people more access to music, they buy more music.'"
Ah ha! You see, someone understands. Maybe this will be peace. If it's cheap, I'm for it, say $5 a month.
Geek Culture killed my dog/
and I don't think it's fair...
io hymen hymnaee io
io hymen hymnaee
I know I should have finished filling up that second harddrive last week!!!
Anyway, I haven't been using gnutella because it is slower, less reliable and seems to have less of a selection. But as soon as Napster goes to pay, it's probably going to have more of a selection, leading more people to use it, leading more people to use it, until nobody cares about NApster anymore anyway.
BTW, get a gnutella program here... freepeer's bearshare program
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
i expect many people will stop downloading MP3s altogether, after being briefly frustrated by the alternatives suggested by their nerdy friend, and many will subscribe to Napster's sellout pay service.
today marks a significant shift in the balance of power here folks. we no longer have the software and money on our side.
i could live a little longer in this prison
As long as you have to pay somebody
I don't understand - the music industry has been saying that using napster is tantamount to stealing from them (stuff they rightfully stole in the first place!), but if we have to pay to steal from them, and they get a bit of the action, it's okay?
And as for the artists that get royalties per disc or single, they will get what out of this? We pay napster a 'subscription'. They bribe - er, pay the RIAA off, and no where in there does the artist that actually created the work get a dime, right? there's no accounting of WHAT was copied, so no royalty. The RIAA later re-affirms that napster is bad, but doesn't do anything about it as long as they get a check every month, the artists still get squat, and we are again paying THE WRONG PEOPLE for music
That's why I like openNap and sites that pay the artists directly: I'd rather steal music than pay the RIAA for it. I'd rather pay the artists to keep making music than anything else, and I'd rather rant on slashdot than actually DOING anything. It's a great world.
Napster, that rollover and play dead sellout in the fight against intellectual property tyranny can die a slow miserable death!!! When it is drawing it's last decrepit breath, I shall be wonderously indifferent
But...I really have no strong opinions about this.
The sig below has been upgraded to this less funny one. - GeneralEmergency
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
At the moment, I expect nothing from Napster; if a song cuts out in mid-download it is a pain, but as I'm going to be getting the track for free, I don't mind spending a bit more time getting the track later on. Once money gets involved (and I have no qualm about paying a monthly/yearly fee in order for access to a music catalogue), I (and I'm sure others) will expect a much better quality of servers. And I'm also feeling a bit uneasy about the fact that Napster's current line of defence (being a common carrier) doesn't quite suit once they start charging for the service. After all, it's the people who use Napster who make it valuable, not the server setup. Anyway, we shall see...
But they want us to py for music that everyone has been screaming is illegal to copy? Make up your minds people.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Darn. Even after all this hoopla, I just got around to installing Napster a couple weeks ago. The softwares not too bad.
Looks like I'll be going back to Hotline, which is where many of my MP3s came from (the rest were ripped from CD).
Got to love these record companies who still distribute their warez on uncompressed optical discs when they could have been using audio+video compression technology to distribute all of the bands songs and music videos on CD.
Perhaps if they spent less money suing people and more money on R&D, people might be more willing to shell out $$ for their product (I know I would shell out $$ for the aforementioned item!)
---------------------------
That's not what I meant.
Sooner or later, they had to keep it free so it would snowball. ITs actually a good service, I would be willing to pay for my account. As long as they dont do bandwidth charging.
90% of the users are cheap SOB's like myself. They won't pay anything, mostly because they dont have anything. Lots of em are kids. And yes, thanks to napigator for windows and built in support on gnapster, very few users will NEED to pay to get music. Thank you opensource.
I am !amused.
Ok, so Napster plans to charge for use.
How's it planning to distribute the spoils? It surely won't be using the ID tags? Naah, it'll just heft over a wedge to the recording companies.
They'll get richer and not one artist will receive a penny.
--
"I do not speak for my employers, though they are controlled from my Teddy's huge pulsating brain."
Does this move ammount to sanctioning of Napster by the music industry ala the DAT tax.
I have no desire to rip off the music industry or the artists, who IMO have every right to charge whatever the heck the like for CDs (as I have every right to buy them or not buy them at a given price... it's not like we're talking about essentials of life here).
I'd actually prefer that the music indstry just get its act together and start a subscription based music download service. Maybe $30/month for unlimited downloads, or something like that. If the quality was good enough (ie, MUCH better than MP3), and if other goodies like cover art, etc were also downloadable, I'd sign up in a minute. Even at that price, it would save me a ton of money over what I spend now on CDs.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
I Sorry, but I can't see paying somebody outside of a P2P connection. Gnutella et. all are viable options that work almost as well, so cya Napster...
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
I use Linux Napster (Home Page). It only seems to connect to Napster's official servers. How do I switch to an OpenNap like Napigator in Windozes?
:)
Thanks.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I am glad they bundled an uninstall.
Some kind of CRC check for legitimacy could also be added, so I know the copy of Rush's "Tom Sawyer"(*) L33tD00d has is the same as the original and not some horribly recorded-from-tape version.
Also, I want discounts (preferrably up to 100% depending on collection size) for people who put songs up as opposed to download-only people.
(*)I don't know which megacorp owns Rush. If it isn't Bertelsmann, what the heck, you understood the general scheme.
As much as I love (and use) the opennap servers, they are not a viable alternative to commercial napster. The servers have limited load, for one, and the (commercial) Napster users DON'T KNOW ABOUT IT. A friend of mine was recently banned by Metallica because she had a song titled "Metallica-Sucks.MP3"
She didn't know what to do, because her IP dosn't change, and she couldn't get around the block. I asked her if she tried Napigator or any of the alternatives. Her response? "What? You mean that there's more than just napster?"
She's just a typical college student. If the average student dosn't know about the options, who does?
No, the typical Slashdotter dosn't count on this one.
---
Desperation is a stinky cologne
i would pay for it, but it will suck if i logon to find only 100 other users! so what will they do? make you share for free? and pay to download? what if i have 100000 mp3s to share, will they pay me some $$$? if not, then they are exploiting me, no? unless they plan to put those mp3s up their themselves, i don't see how this will work out fairly.
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
Well, it seems as if it's time to change to other services which allready are available. OpenNap is an alternative as long as copyright enforcement or legal troubles allow networks like this to survive, after that its time for freenet - if this concept may survive.
And the real question is what percentage of Napster users will shell out the clams vs moving to OpenNap or Gnutella.
Of course, this is assuming that most Napster users even know about OpenNap or Gnutella. I know that at least 95% of my computer literate friends have never even heard of either one of them, and the ones that do are the active *nix users, not the casual MS Office users.
If 90% of Napster's clients come from Joe and Jill Schmoe using AOL, who don't know A) what the alternatives are or B) where to get them, than Napster has a pretty good racket going. Hook 'em by giving it away, then start charging later. They probably would have had to go to a subscription basis sooner or later, just to turn a profit, music industry lawsuits or no.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
I'd rather pay napster than funnel my hard earned cash into the music industry through the record companies.
Nessun maggior dolore, Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria. -Dante
Funny how even on my 100Mbit Ethernet dorm connection I can't do shit because I'm queued behind 50+ 56kers on a Cable share.
I'm not impressed. With MP3s it's kinda simple, go for the high bitrates to get quality.
I tried using Gnutella for other media. Now it's even worse.
Rips of movies where you can't read subtitles, real media files that stop and refuse to fast forward, Gig wasting but better quality mpegs and divxen.
I recently dumped a certain 5Gig anime series (95 episodes) to CD. They're in real media. They go from so-so to crap. Viewable if you like babysitting the controls.
The mpegs would be at least 5 to 6 times the size or even double that because these 50MBs average files were monaural.
The divx would be leaner but it already takes 9 CDs to hold them. On a few DVDs (I'm so getting those as soon as get the drive) I would get better quality HDTV support and less space wasted.
On the other hand if we had somne sort of multicast tuning for the unicast net, you could conceivably get all the data as it strobes across.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Does anyone know if this is still their plan, or have they decided to make it subscription only? This article didn't go into much detail.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
If I want to buy a song I like, I'll go to CDnow or emusic.
If I want to sample a song or band, to see if it's worth paying for an album or individual song, then I find a friend to sample the music from. I've been buying a LOT more music now that I have thousands of "friends" on Napster to sample from, as opposed to only a few friends who like music similar to mine.
Some of my favorite bands, for instance Pain and Johnny Socko, I would never have even heard of without being able to sample it for free. Napster helps small artists get their music to people outside their home town.
With tons of other file sharing programs, why pay for music? The whole point of using Napster is to get free music. I don't care about the record companies, and I don't care about the artists. I care about how fat my wallet is. Shelling out money for "sound" doesn't go well with me anymore.
I know that I for one am planning to pay as long as Napster's database is larger than any other. As a jazz musician and arranger, I use Napster to listen to as many different recordings of the same song that I can find before writing a new arrangement of it or playing it in an ensemble. Since I'm often looking for relatively obscure songs, or else obscure recordings of well-known songs, an alternative system like OpenNap or Gnutella wouldn't be as much use until they have anywhere near the user base as Napster. Right now they seem to have primarily pop music. (Nothing wrong with pop music, it's just not what I'm usually looking for...)
What's happening man? I mean, Britney is not a musician or a vocalist, she's a couple of dancing tits! (Okay, nothing against tits there, but you get the point). Musicians are pushed to the background, 'idols' are pushed to the front because marketing laws say that quality is defined by the user's experience - what does one feel during product usage. Does this mean that entertainment industries will sell you life-styles in future, aren't they already doing this?
The only party getting rich is the distributor, which isn't Napster.
Bizar technology?
Paying for the subscription contradicts the Internet's best quality: it is free. It is also anonymous, so that whatever you do, in most of the cases you can't be easily tracked.
Now, when Napster becomes for-pay, it no longer possesses the two advantages above. People won't buy it, at least not until there are no other choices.
Luckily for us, we have ample choices. Gnutella is one, OpenNap is another. There's really nothing indispensable about Napster. Ironically, I think that Napster could have made much profit, if they put ads into their service. However, now the loss is theirs alone.
The bottom line is: The king is dead - long live the king.
Where are all the people who cry sellouts when Metallica is mentioned?
Shouldn't they be saying the same things about Napster, Inc. right now?
Hypocrites!
...simply because every MP3 encoder works with a different algorithm, producing slightly different results - not to mention CD audio rippers that produce quantitatively and qualitatively different source files.
Collection size won't be a valid basis for discounts either, because users will make up fake band names and songs for thousands of files to reduce their subscription costs. And since no one will be looking for those fake songs, it will be impossible to enforce.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
The only way you're going to get people to pay a subscription is if there are enough people on there to share music. No-one in their right mind is going to cough up the money to find himself (or herself) and 14 other people.
So how on earth are you going to persuade the people to get there in the first place? If 30,000 people suddenly decide to subscribe then the momentum will be there for the project to suceed. But things like that don't happen.
Finally, how are you going to persuade people to join when they realise that Napster are going to be making money out of the songs that they make available and the bandwidth that they waste when someone uploads something?
(Sure, since the majority of stuff isn't theirs rightfully in the first place you could say the money is eventually going to the rightful people, but since no-one has come up with a good description about how thats going to happen)
In short, I can't see it working. People will just give up. Sure there are other things but I doubt the majority of current users will or will ever know about any of them.
--
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
The music industry is okay with this? Don't the have any idea how consumers think?
Right now I use Napster to explore new music, and I usually end up buying CDs of the stuff I like. But if I have to pay for the service, suddenly I'm interested in "getting my money's worth". Now I'll want to use Napster more often because I'm paying for it. In addition, I'm not going to want to buy CD's. Why? Because I already paid for the music once. Why would I want to pay again?
No one really knows how much Napster actually helped the sale of CDs. But whatever it is, after fees it'll probably go down.
I wonder if there's anyone who'll START using Napster because of the fees? Perhaps they'll be more comfortable now that it seems more legal...
JWho moderates the meta-moderators?
While I think that the idea of compensation for the "right to use Napster" is a good thing, I have to wonder if this type of setup really makes sense. You have to look at where the money will flow versus where it should flow. In this case, I think that the obvious recipient of any cash should be the person who is hosting the MP3s. After all, you're not downloading MP3s from Napster per se; you're downloading them from another anonymous Internet user who is providing the files as a service to the community as a whole. Up until now, that service has been provided for free.
.. let's just make sure we get it right.
Case in point: if some skinny earringed punk spends all night downloading Limp Bizkit MP3s from my machine over his 56K modem, and in so doing reduces my total available bandwidth for things such as 2.4 a kernel download, if anybody should be getting paid for it, it's me. Napster is the only widely-used Internet application that involves people just giving away large chunks of bandwidth for free without any form of compensation (either directly or indirectly through methods such as forced advertisement viewing.) There is no reason that this state of affairs needs to be maintained.
This could be worked out fairly easily, I think; all you would really need is to have everybody establish PayPal accounts and then modify the central Napster server so that it credits and debits appropriate amounts of money upon completion of a download. A dime a song? A quarter? These are numbers that we can work out. The important thing is getting the infrastructure in place. Once that is done, the rest of the pesky details can be worked out.
At any rate, money-to-the-hoster is the only fair and equitable scenario. It doesn't need to go to Napster itself; all they do is provide a simple online database that points you to the folks who are doing the real work. And it sure as hell doesn't need to go to the RIAA; the CDs that the songs were ripped from were already paid for once. You don't see the government tax you twice on the same income (except for inheritance taxes, perhaps, but that's a different debate.) You don't see the justice system attempt to try people twice for the same crime after they've been acquitted.
So if Napster is going to move to a pay-for-play model, good
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
>Napster users will shell out the clams vs moving
>to OpenNap or Gnutella.
Well, it depends. HOW MUCH I would pay also depends:
If the subscription fee goes to Fanning and Co. for providing such an awesome service as Napster:
$5 / month
IF the subscription fee goes into a general fund to be distributed to the artists whose songs are downloaded:
$10 / month
If the system is set up so that MY fee goes ONLY to the artists *I* download (ie. if I download five Less Than Jake tracks, anf five Paul Oakenfold tracks, Less Than Jake gets half of MY fee, and Oakenfold gets half of MY fee, but the backstreet boys don't get ANYTHING from me):
$15 / month
If the RIAA/Metallica get so much as a penny:
$0
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
You're never going to /. the BBC ... they are public funded, so they are very adept at wasting squillions of quid buying big server farms.
:-)
Maybe someone didn't think this all the way through...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I quite like the audiogalaxy software. Basically you download their piece of software called the "satellite" and you then use a web based interfact to select what songs you want to download, then without hassle it downloads the songs without further interaction. As it's web based you can do it all remotely so if you're at work you can remotely log into the website and set more songs downloading on your cable connection at home. It resumes partial downloads and is available for both Linux and Windows (closed source tho at the moment).
I dont really think that charging users is all that great of an idea. There are still alot of honest people out there, like myself, that do feel somewhat bad about downloading music from some bands. Most of the bands that I listen to are not all that well known, although I can still find thier music on napster. If I download thier music without paying a dime I feel like they should get some money for it, and alot of times I download thier music so that I can hear it before I buy it, If I dont think it is worthy of my money then It is probably not worth listening too.
If I have to pay to download it weather it be the 99 cents per track from emusic or the subscription charge through napster, I am not going to go out and buy the cd because I have already paid for the music once. Ill just download the album plus other songs and burn it to cd. I dont really think that the bands are going to be seeing any of that money from the napster subscription service, because record companies will find anyway they can to screw the artist. Such as the emusic.com scenario, The bands may or may not get the 50% of sales that Emusic.com says that they are giving to the artist. I know of at least one band that has thier music on emusic.com and doesnt see a dime of the money that thier record companie makes, because it was not in thier contract. I can only assume that record companies will find a way to get out of paying thier artist the money from napster.
Another problem with charging subscription fees is that the people who are giving up bandwidth and computer time are not the record companies or even napster but the customers. Why should I pay to allow someone else to use my bandwidth.
Although I do think that this is somewhat a step in the right direction I do not think that it is actually the correct step to make, but who knows I guess that we will have to just wait and see.
"Alcohol, cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" -Homer Simpson
I'm not an avid user of Napster, only using the program to download two dozen songs. I don't think Napster should have to go through this, since all they are doing is providing a service in allowing users to swap .mp3s. Ensuring that copyright is not being violated should fall within the jurisdiction of the user who is providing the file to be shared. All the RIAA wants out of this is some extra money so it can continue doing this to the other P2P file swapping services.
With tons of other [ways to get a five-finger discount], why pay for anything? The whole point of stealing is to get free stuff. I don't care about the companies, and I don't care about the inventors. I care about how fat my wallet is. Shelling out money for anything doesn't go well with me anymore.
Screw da Man! Run, don't walk, to loot your local Gap!
(/sarcasm)
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I figure they can't lock out OpenNap. Maybe if you download the new, 1337 client, they can change it to make it harder, but someone can [may already have] coded an open napster client. Even if not, plenty of folks have older versions [I know I still do] that will work just fine. BTW, Napigator makes life ever so much easier when looking for non-Napster-Inc. servers.
-={(Astynax)}=-
-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"
The original sprit of Napster wasn't a free-as-in-beer proposal. It was a protest against the neurotic, intellectual freak-show known as the RIAA. I am disgusted by the fact that almost none of the money I spend when I purchase a CD goes to the artist, and that a CD that costs about one U.S. dollar to produce is sold for fifteen to twenty times as much, because there is no other source for this music.
If this was truly a free market [the music industry], I could pay $6 for a CD, have $2.50 go to distribution costs, and the rest go to Collective Soul, or Aerosmith, or Motley Crue, or Enya, or Beethoven (I sincerely doubt that there would be any dead RIAA executives in heaven to pay him his due royalty check, though...).
Can we sing "Monopoly", anyone? Nope...because that would likely violate a copyright somewhere...
I sincerely doubt that people will switch to utilizing Napster as a pay-per-usage type service, unless they set up some type of system whereby you make a micropayment to the person serving up the MP3s -- some of us (like myself) have gigabytes of good music, and I wouldn't mind making an extra $100 a month or so for allowing people to download it.
This is unlikely to happen.
--
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
I won't lie. I use napster to pirate MP3's, and i have a ten gig collection of acid jazz and trance music.
I'll just go to opennap. I'm not willing to pay for the music... i'm a high school student with a small allowance and no job. I don't have enough $ like you dot commies on here with your Benz's and your Benjamins.
I have to spend my money getting weed to smoke on weekends. So I use napster, and now instead OpenNap through Napster with Napigator .
The record industry? Fuck them. I never intended to pay and I always knew I was breaking copyright laws. So what? I do that with my mad l33t copy of Photoshop and everything else anyways.
Record Industries: Face it, you will lose, buying Napster changes nothing, except making people move to an even harder-to-control system with no central authority. You've fucked up. Please come again.
Here is what I want:
A service, maybe $5 a month subscription fee, plus $.10 to $.25 for each song I purchase/download. Or you can keep things how they are and I will spend the money amongst few artists. Seeing as I buy most of my music in the form of used CD's and from truly independant labels you ain't seeing much of my business anyways. The above scenario may just change that.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
You mean, I now have to pay for all of the transfer errors? Get real, if it wasn't for the people, then there would be no music to download. So Napster, when you start getting all this money on our behalf, start sending some ca$h, because you couldn't be doing it without people like myself; The ones who share.
There is no way they can accurately track song downloads. Ff you change the filename and the ID3 tag to a band that does not accept money, or a non-existent band then you cannot accurately track the songs. Napster makers know this, and they are saying they are gonna charge just to make everyone happen. Oh, go to google.com and search for opennap, no more fees.
I have yet to hear how much they will be charging, but I think if they didn't go overboard and charge more than like $4.95 or $7.95, then I would go for it. Some people made some valid points though - what is stopping another user from cancelling your download midway into the song? Napster should distribute their membership fees to those users who offer the most mp3's and receive the most downloads. That's only fair, right?
...All I can say is that my life is pretty strange...
Let us think about this for a second...
Users share music for free, no one cares about performance.
If people start paying, are others going to be forced to stay on while a paying customer finishes a download?
Does MS have hooks in Windows to prevent people from disconnecting? Will domestic violence increase because 14 year old wareZ kiddies sitting on 56k modems can't hax0r crays because all of their bandwidth is being used by 14 year old girls downloading their archive of Britney bootlegs?
teknopurge
Website Hosting
I'm happy to pay for the music. As a consumer, there's 2 things I want out of digital music (maybe 3):
I want it now, conveniently, and I want to get it again if I lose a hard drive without paying for it again
I want to be able to buy only what I want. One song from an artist shouldn't cost $14.
I want artists to get more money, so more artists are supported, and more people are encouraged to go for it
One does have to wonder, what are the record companies good for, in this scenario? But whatever. I want my music digital, I want to pick and choose songs, and if I get those things, I'll happily pay for them. (I'd gladly pay $2-3 a song)
Now we have to pay to steal songs!!!!!!! ;)
Isn't this old news??
Oh, you're so ELITE!
Shit. Back in the days when I was trading C64 games I realized that counting the "warez" doesn't work. Give all you've got out freely and you'll get everything for free.
When the stuff you trade flows freely, everybody benefits. Yeah, there are unavoidable freeloaders but most traders will appreciate you for sharing freely. Can you argue with that?
Bean-counting warez was a bad mistake back then. It's a bad mistake now.
They said the same thing when they boxed Linux, "Who'd pay for the OS when it's free for download ?"....
Last time I checked, RedHat is still on Comp USA's Shelves.
I think a pay service is a fine idea but they are going to have to give you a lot more than the hacked together search engine that they do now. For example, how about:
- Releasing a 1.0 client that looks like a professional application (e.g. doesn't have buttons stretching halfway across the screen) and fixes the dozens of obvious bugs.
- Implementing a sophistocated search engine that goes beyond simple keyword searches. It DESPERATELY needs boolean operators and making the Artist and # of results fileds work would be nice too.
- Searching across ALL of their servers regardless of which one you log on to. You may not have noticed, but right now searches only hit users on the same server as you so you never get more than a fraction of Napster content at one time.
Now that Napster actually has a business model I think it's about time that they replaced Shawn Fanning's amateur project with a professional quality application.Jeez I'm soo damn tired of people crying because their free ride is over. (No this isn't a flame - or a troll attempt) Who cares how much the damn charge is, I'd be more than willing to pay for Napster.. up to a certain point of course, but hell they aren't MS I really dont see the price being over the top. You know, I see a lot of laziness on the net today. I'm not gonna give you that "I started out with my C=64.. blah blah.." story.. I only really have one point.. If you aren't contributing in some way to the developement and growth of at least one of the hundreds of projects that started out like napster, then you should be happy/excited to come up off a few bucks a month and CONTRIBUTE!
Are YOU listed?
tunnel Napster server queries through a host, then
reply with the answers and IP addresses of
the P2P partner, so you can go download from him for free.
I should patent this technique i guess, and no i don't care about prior art, nobody does. ;-)
- lopster - a very cool client
- gnapster
THese are both GTK based and fully functional (almost).they plan to pay the artists. I assume they want to pay per download, but for that to happen, they have to know who the artist is. Using the file names would be unreliable, since everyone has their own way of naming music files. Which means they'll have to use ID3 tag for identification. Which means they'll have to require that songs traded on the service have their ID3 tags filled out properly! Thank god! That alone is worth the price of the service (assuming its not more than $15 a month).
Would this be theoretically possible? I.e. design a Napster client which acts as an opennap server [proxy], and then devotes 1% of its available bandwidth to forwarding requests from opennap to Napster. Since only searches need to be forwarded, just a few clued-up T1 Napster subscribers could give opennap the facility to offer any file which is on Napster.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Does anyone remember the AOL lawsuits from a few years back? People sued because they got busy signals trying to dial up -- they felt that by not being able to connect, they weren't getting what they were paying for.
As soon as Napster goes subscription (and hence becomes a legitimate business in the eyes of averagejoeschmo@aol.com), you can count on a huge increase in the proportion of modem users. While curious average users will sign up in droves, college students with high speed access will avoid the charges by using other methods of file transfer among their friends, e.g. ICQ, IM, FTP, file-sharing, etc.
And you can also bet that complaints from modem users will skyrocket: people can't connect to the servers, can't find the songs they want, downloads are too slow, high-speed users keep disconnecting them, etc.
Right now, a large percentage of Napster files come from college students (witness the huge drop in files over winter break), and since modem users don't have to pay for the service, they don't have any legitimate cause for complaint. But as soon as they're in the vast majority and are shelling out a monthly fee, modem users will expect a certain level of service. Unless Napster can deliver it, they had better be prepared for a barrage of lawsuits.
Cheers,
IT
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
this is purely speculation but what will probably happen is napster will release authorized mp3's for thier paying users to access. which doesn't really make sense, since the whole point of napster was to allow for file sharing amongst users. why the hell would users want to pay to be able to share thier own files? why not just use openap?
If my personal experience is worth anything, don't even attempt using a servent like gnutella if you have bandwidth less than DSL. It's not only the "bandwidth barrier", I also suspect most user are not sharing or have their thresholds set above 56k. Anyone have a solution to the high cost of DSL?
Is it for the basic service Napster provides, linking users with MP3 files together? In that case, there are similar free services, which makes it a little hard to compete (think Netspace vs. Microsoft)
Is it some sort of royalty fee for the songs? Because it seems they are charging a per-month fee, which wouldn't even cover the cost of one CD. Better than making no money, but does it stop Time-Warner from suing me?
How will they pay royalties? Search transfers for artist names? Occasionaly, the artist's name doesn't show up, and what if it's wrong? For instance, the Gourds (from Austin) did a remake of "Gin and Juice" (great remake, too), which is being labeled on naspter as either a Phish song or a Ween song. Has technology gotten to the point where a song can be uniquely identified, even if ripped at different bit rates, etc? Or will they just hack it?
This is a strange story - it once was "we're thinking about a pay system" to "the system might be in place in 5 or 6 months". Still no real story, no hint how it will be done. Perhaps the best question is, which Napster version is the one where they start monitoring your habits? Is it already out?
Agreed - aren't they the most-hit non-search-engine site in Europe or something? I bet slashdot could get BBC'd more easily.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
The majority of MP3s floating out there were done by the clueless who :
used Line-In instead of DAC
If they DACed, they used a Crappy CD/CDRom (Jitter-bug is a dance, not an CDROM "feature")
Encode at 128k at the worst possible setting
Couldn't ID3 tag if their life depended on it
And don't get me started on incomplete, unverified, mislabeled songs...
It's like paying for a really bad tape of an FM broadcasted song.
---
As long as the fee is relatively small (say, $5-10 per month) I'll gladly pay for Napster just to eliminate my guilt. Since I started working from home full-time (where I can crank the tunes and have DSL) I've begun using Napster a *lot*. I mostly use it to download songs that I think I might find interesting. If I really like them, I usually buy a CD, so I can feel like I'm not totally freeloading (also, by buying the CD I can rip my own, high-quality copies). However, stuff that I don't like quite well enough to spend $16 on, I still keep, and I still listen to, and I feel guilty about it. I know that what I'm doing is illegal and that bugs me.
If, for a few bucks a month I could know that the copyright owners are getting paid and that the whole deal is legitimate... I'm there. Really, I don't even care if the artists are getting paid, just so long as what I'm doing is legal, my conscience will be happy.
The reason, BTW, that I don't care about whether or not the artists get paid is that I think the free flow of digital music will eventually either cut the record companies out or force them to be fair to the artists. Technology is going to break their stranglehold on the industry and to stay in business they're going to have to start providing real value at a reasonable price to artists and consumers. The more the record companies rip the artists off now, the more pissed off the artists will get and the faster that process will occur.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Well, there weren't any details on how the subscription service would be set up, but one would hope it would be some flat rate for unlimited downloads. $10 - $15 would be reasonable for that kind of access, though I can already imagine the fr33 muzIk kiddi3z already kvetching about how "music should be free." As in beer, of course; some (not all, but some I'm sure) couldn't care less if the actual artists are free as in speech - for such an example see, Offspring, latest CD, Sony, controversy.
The article implied the artists would get paid royalties. In a perfect system, the artists would be directly paid all of the money, but then, nothing's perfect. I'd like to know how Napster/BMG plans to divide up the royalties. Number of downloads? Number of songs on the network? And what about indie artists who aren't a member of a label that signs on with Napster? What about artists belonging to labels that might still wish to litigate after the service kicks in?
There are still a shitload of unanswered questions, and lots of time in which to answer them.
Let the "last night of Studio 54" feelings begin.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Napster is a relatively simple protocol, with a simple (though now very well-tuned) server backend. It's fast, but it doesn't do anything particularly clever. This is why OpenNap turned up so quickly, and why we don't need to pay for Napster.
Audiogalaxy Satellite, on the other hand, has nearly all its cleverness on the server side. It keeps note of the songs you want and starts downloading them for you when you're around, automatically. It chooses the nearest peer to you automatically. It understands the difference between artists and titles, so you can browse by artist. You can leave the client running on DSL/cable at home while you use the web interface at work to send stuff to it. And loads of other features.
It's very, very cool, and it'll be much harder to clone for the Open Source world. I'd pay for it.
So they could sell music to the masses, and indemnity to servers. Neat.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
OK, I can see this is all well and good for the big five record companies. But what about the rest of us?
I make my own tracks. Before with Napster I connected and I shared them. Now Napster are going to be charging a fee for me to share my tracks, and furthermore they're going to be making money by charing other people to listen to them! Does this in any way strike anyone as injust??
I'll be emailing Napster to enquire as to exactly how they intend to resolve this issue. If I had money for lawyers, I reckon I might actually have a pretty decent case, because they've set a precedent by paying other artists.
But then of course the question arises: how much are they going to pay everyone? They could, I suppose, pay per search request (they can't tell when someone connects to download at present). But how do you link searches to particular tracks? Filenames are pretty meaningless.
There are a hell of a lot of issues that need to be worked out here.
--
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
Was your AOL-Time Warner-Bertelsmann
:)
:)
:)
reference part of the joke?
But if you look at www.aol.co.uk scroll down to the bottom of the page where the copyright disclaimer is and you can see that they're already partners in europe
As for 3 subscribers, you've gotta be joking- hmm then again. There's a lot of (better) free alternatives out there
Now I've just gotta get out of the shock of a non goatse first post
The thing I see when we talk about this $10 (and I wonder about) is, since the artists and labels are now getting royalties for our dl, does this mean we are in the clear as far as dl mp3s and not buying cds? Or is the amount of money they're getting only covering the legal idea of dl mp3s and not actually fully compensating everyone?
I must burn in hell, suffer and pay for my sins
But Gods the one who's losing, Satan always wins!
They have changed the matrix.
Is that what your saying...You want to be rewarded for giving away music someone else created and recorded ..
Thats worse than giving it away for free to others.
How about paying the artists directly for each download?
Pretty soon the whole world will be paid sallaries in the forms of tips on "paypal"..
You must be on some Strong stuff.
/A
Hopefully Gnutella programmers will get their network working much more efficiently. I can't find anythihng on there even though I know people are hosting the songs.
"Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto"
(I am a man: nothing human is alien to me)
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
Of course there's the problem with the OpenNap servers.
I think it'll only be a matter of time before Napster is going to be a feature of an ISP. It will license its service to all of them out there.
"Welcome to AOL, for $30 a month you get email, your own webpage, newsgroups, and the Napster service for your musical needs"
It could happen.
--Dave
it's called a "harddrive"
-
I mean HEY, they found out about napster to begin with. Even burning a cd was complicated at some point. Theyll all pickup the new technologies when theres a need for it.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
...I haven't used Napster in months, why bother being tied down to one pay service when there are so many p2p programs to choose from. Also said p2p programs can let you share more than just Mp3's, i.e. movies, pics, software....and it doesn't stop there.
http://www.imesh.com
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Napster is a spectacular service. I've bought more music cds and discovered more bands than I ever would have without it.
A subscription is the Right Thing to do. It will allow artists to get money they rightfully deserve for their work.
Since the artists will be getting paid, the barrage of lawsuits can finally be over, thus Napster will continue to exist.
This is a great thing indeed. If you don't like it, go use gnutella or one of the openNap servers. Be sure and not complain when you cant find that obscure song you were looking for. Or when the service quality just plain sucks.
-
Friday night 11:00pm
You go over your plans for the night:
1) You can stay home and drink by yourself but that's no fun (Be content with your mp3 collection and just listen to your own)
2) You can go over to your buds house and drink but you want to meet new people (Grab some mp3s from your friends)
3) You can go out to a bar, spend $10.00 on a cover charge, pay 3x more for beer (Use napster).
Most of us would choose 3. Sure we could go to the cheaper bars but there's no hot chicks there(OpenNap / Gnutella).
It's a more efficient market in action ... it's up to users whether they want to spend more time (re-dowloading for interrupts or crappy copies), or more money (to Napster2 for clean, efficient copies). Viva the new service, good for all.
I see a lot of comments related to how MP3s are "yours" or "mine". Funny, I thought they were "free" and "music belongs to everyone". Everyone goes on about how music "belongs to the people" and all that, but you worry about someone being able to download more songs from your collection than you can from theirs?
Further proof that this isn't about rights, or new ways of doing things, but that people just want free stuff. Selfish and hypocritical.
And before you mod me down for daring to buck the Slashdot party line, give a rebuttal that doesn't involve swearing or being more elite than me.
He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. - "Big Al" Einstein
They have the source code on the web page. Look in the defines.h file starting on line 33. Just change them there. If you know C, then you can do some tweaking and have the servers come from the command line.
If the pay service doesn't offer enough additional quality or whatever, to make users want to pay for Nastper, as opposed to using a free service, then the pay service will never take off.
Once you start paying for Napster, you are tracked by your credit card to your real name and address. The record companies get a judge to force Napster to release to them, the name and CC# of all users who downloaded a song from a copyrighted artist, and force the judge to charge said credit card for the entire album. BAM.
You would have to be a complete idiot to sign up for something like this, which means it will be "First Posters" and "Goat SeX", and that's about all.
-Spackler
I'll start paying for Napster as soon as they hire a decent programmer who can work out the bugs. $10 a month would actually be a good deal if every third download didn't "time out" for no apparent reason...
They also need to start booting people who trade in unfinished files. I'm sick of downloading songs and not getting the end of the song.
The MP3 search engine..
The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.
broken link
The Technonaut
"Black" Access - The software you get is so *ucking clever it works out what you want before you want it downloads it and puts it into your playlist so all you need to do is press play and you get the music you want without even having to think about it...
Black access would be straightforward to implement. It would be similar to platinum access, except it automatically suggests singles or albums from the same genre and artist as the ones you regularly download. Riffage.com did this.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
There nutZ.. The reason there the bomb is cuz they got a huge following after they go subscription there gonna loose that following... And those people will swith to other file sharing programs....... Napster is commiting suicide..
Cold-Brewed Draft Since 1978
It doesn't make sense that the music labels will settle for a subscription fee only system.
Something tells me Napster plans to migrate to a "copyright protected" music format later on so that they can squeeze out more money from people with expiration dates and "play-only-on-this-computer" authentication.
If they don't, they lose too much of their much cherished control over music. $10 a month won't make up for the amounts of music people will download.
I for one would be red faced to get up on stage with MTV and say I wrote that piece of crap known as the napster client software. Will they come out with something better if I have to pay for it? I'll stick with eDonkey l8r
If I'm tried for, found guilty of, convicted for piracy and sentenced to pay a fee to offset that piracy (like DAT tax, Audio CDR tax, audio casette tax, Canadian CDR tax, etc.), then why shouldn't I parate, right? The fine legitimizes the crime. It's like if the county mailed and forced you to pay you a parking ticket every day for parking in the handicapped zone. You may as well park there, right?
Next month, how many cds would you buy? I doubt that it would be $30 worth.
But you want older stuff too. Well after downloading their entire catalog and buring it, you don't need the service anymore.
So first month, burn their entire collection. Second month, its more value to buy the cd.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
But I won't give you any points for not being able to look at the filesize and be able to guess that it is the complete song.
Normally, when I search, I sort by song length. This puts all the complete files together; then I go for low pings. But this still doesn't help with users who log off and users who set their simultaneous uploads to 0.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I have been on various OpenNap servers out there, and they are WORTHLESS, because it's only running on a SINGLE MACHINE, therefore only a few thousands users can be logged at once. That's not enough : the chance you'll find the song you're looking for is exactly ZERO PERCENT. Unless you're a Britney Spears fan.
Wrong. OpenNap servers can be linked together to form a network with shared file and user databases. This is what the OpenNap and MyNapster networks are. The numbers are already pretty damn big, and believe me, once Napster goes subscription-only the user base on these free networks will rocket far higher.
Note that if you're using the original Napster Inc. client for Windows, you can switch between networks with Napigator.
Remember that Napster has thousands of machines connected together, and even though they do have islands, you still search across a user database of hundreds of thousands, if not millions.
See above.
to build a napster - opennap bridge, that way only one haX0r needs to pay for Napster and the rest get it on his buck....
Do these support text-based only? I SSH/telnet to Linux servers to use Napster (downloading with Windows Napster on a 26400 modem connection is not fun!). I don't have my own Linux box yet. Thanks!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
How long until after Napster begins this service with all the big labels will it be before they begin the OpenNap Witch Hunt? How long will it be before they claim 'the Napster protocol is proprietary IP and OpenNap is an unlicensed implementation of our IP"???
Napster has to provide more of a service than what it's currently doing. All it is is a protocol, they don't have anything to do with the actual files. In order for them to charge for a 'service', they have to provide one, don't they? I would assume they would start hosting files on their servers. Add that to the fact they'll have to get the files from the music companies, I don't trust most people's copies out there.
Also, how would this affect stuff like live recordings? Would Joe Schmoe who went to a Metallica show and had front row seats and taped it on his Minidisc recorder (never done this, really :) be able to share his live recordings still?
I'll be interested to read the fine print of the service agreement they'll be writing up.
--trb
The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.
Or you can use gnapster, or knapster, or whatever you darn well please. Gnapster even has a menu item: Browse OpenNap Servers. No subscription needed. Napster cannot block it.
As for price, I heard $4.95/month somewhere, but I can't recall where. It might have been on the Drudge Report two months ago.
--
Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here, looking through your stuff.
Napster is introducing a subscription service, while keeping the existing free service intact. All you Linux zealots shouldn't jump up in arms at the first mention of money! RTFArticle ...
I can't remember where I found out about this program, but you can grab it here. From WinMX.com... :-)
Features
Share and DOWNLOAD ANY FILE TYPE
-Full chat capabilities
-Connect to multiple networks simultaneously
-Multi-windowed interface perfect for high-
resolution / multi-monitor systems
-Tracks and resumes broken transfers
-Intelligent queuing options
-Works behind SOCKS4/5 and ICS based networks
We respect your privacy and don't collect any
personal information
As of now it only runs on Windows platforms, but I'm sure it won't be long before someone ports it to Linux/*BSD
The one and only. I have the OVAs. The latter came out fantastic subbed by AnimeBall. But it was hell trying to find them.
And I do intend to get ADV's version as much as ADV sucks at subbing.
As the other post noted, I don't really have a 100Mbit connection, but I did pay $400 for it. Why? In the hopes that it would improve in the future. Maybe it will. I like paying for things. I just like having them when I can.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
gnutella.da.ru
In what specialists describe as a surprizing twist, Napster has settled the suit Universal Music has brought against the upstart company. Analyst who has asked not to disclose his name told that the settlement was prodded by the Universal's parent, beverage company Seagram. "They have seen the opportunity in distributing alcoholic beverages a new way", he said.
In a short while a new site, www.schnappster.com, will be opened using Napster technology and Seagram beverages. Users will be able to download any beverages initially through the DSL (Distiller Subscriber Line) only with other types of Internet access to follow.
In what someone could interpret as a slap in his face, Shannon Fanning, 20 was not allowed into the press conference because he is not 21 yet. SlashDot's Jon Katz was able to interview him in the dark corridor of the Seagram headquarters where the announcement took place. "I am not offended", said Fanning, sipping gin from a prototype device, connected to his Transmeta laptop, "This will become (hic), a new world of (hic) beer-to-peer networking, and no Feds will be able to do anything free (hic) enterprise!", he added with a blissful smile on his face.
"Geeks rule!", concluded Jon.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
Just wondering, does this make sharing of copywrited mp3s legal in Bertelsmann's eyes. If the Napster concept was illegal in the first place, which is the basis for the RIAA lawsuit, how does Bertelsmann charging a fee make it less legal?
I just can't see Napster's current distribution model as being any more valid when it's offered as a pay servicce
Read the cnn story: http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/computing/01/29/fee.b ased.napster.idg/index.html
it says the pay service will be introduced alongside the free service.
My god, you'd think a Slashdot reader would be the type to hurl accusations before even knowing the facts... : )
As I understand it, the subscription fee will *only* be for those wishing to use the "deluxe" service of napster, where garanteed quality mp3's will be offered. No, they won't be profitting from your cherished semi-fragment of a Metallica song. The free part of the service will remain as is (although I wouldn't be surprised if they skimped on the search servers for it), while they'll offer good connections and high quality stuff to the people who pay. This has been in the Napster FAQ for months people...
"We obviously need a new moderation category: (-1, Woo-fucking-hoo)" --Mr. AC
Don't get me wrong, the OpenNap initiative is a worthy one, but to make a free music-sharing service that can compete with Napster as it exists now, you need an infrastructure that is WAY TOO expensive. Well, of course, OpenNap is certainly better than nothing. But it won't compete with Napster.
I use gnapster, and therefore have access to both official Napster and OpenNap servers. I use the OpenNap servers occasionally, mainly to chat with people. But i have 2000 MP3s, and none of them come from an OpenNap server.
Right now it's clear that the bulk of big faster napster servers are run by Students. If my university weren't so tight fisted then i'd run one (but the 28.8 connection with per minute charges that they give me free doesn't quite hack it).
:)
However I wouldn't run a server so that some corporation can get rich out of it.
Why should users pay napster and the record company so they can download a song from me!?
I wouldn't share on napster if it made napster inc rich.
Napster will soon find that for their business model to succeed they'll have to pay the servers - sadly that's unethical
This one really reeks of stench.....3 main reasons this ain't gonna werk.....the artists ain't gonna see shit....there will be a million new napster clones(of which the newbies can easily find out about when someone trying to promote their napster clone will instant message everybody on napster)..lastly, nobody wants a shitty little $5-15 bill to hassle with(specially when most of the users are kids...and i sure as hell ain't givin' my CC# to napsteriaa).......the solution is to have a big database of every band out there...the listener picks the band they want to listen to....they are taken to the bands website all their songs are on there for free(including album covers, artwork)...advertisements will pay the bands according to how many hits they get and everybody eventually wins....think about it too....the band can sell merchandise, show tourdates, etc...hell you know budweiser would be one of the first advertisers, as would alot of clothing stores....what do ya'll think???
I wonder if goatse.cx ever has this problem...
I read the article and it plainly states that
the new fee based service will NOT replace the old
one but co-exist side by side. This means all the
free mp3 songs will still be available. The new
service offers "high quality" mp3's and "always
available" mp3's.
- A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
Server Load Too High
We are experiencing traffic volumes beyond the capacity of our servers.
Please try again in a few minutes.
Maybe if they mentioned something new, like a price, I would care.
ummmmm where can I get a 390 GIG hard drive for $150?????????
SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0
0 rows returned
If you want Fair Compensation and you care about your probably starving artists check out Fairtunes.
Matt
Just use www.splooge.com We'd rather go out of business than charge people. -jb
The poster wasnt concerned about paying the fee. He was stating that if he does decide to pay the fee and use their database, how does he get compensated for sharing his own intellectual property at the same level as do the major labels.
The ivory tower has never had to reach so h
If Napster can have a (decently) guaranteed QoS, I think it's time they started working their way into the real world. They already have an incredibly powerful brand name - I don't know why they haven't started selling Napster-branded MP3 Walkmen already. If they can reasonably guarantee good music access, there's a lot more that can be done. Consider an iOpener-like deal where you get a dirt-cheap stereo component that plugs into your home network. Picking out a song or playlist on your TV caches or streams it directly into your setup (provided, of course, your subscription is paid up). I realize Napster has been busy with lawsuits and all, but you'd think they would have noticed they're in a unique position to legitimize MP3 for the "average" consumer by now.
Yes, but... to me five bucks is crap. That's like a meal. ONE. A really good cup of chai is like 2.50 at the coffeeshop down the street. I would gladly switch places with you to have to pay 80 a month in bills - have to pay about 400 a month for the exact same (or worse) "services". If you want to complain, protest to Napster and make them only make you pay a quarter or something equivicable, and be glad you only pay 80 a month for food et al. Lucky bastard.
Geek Culture killed my dog/
and I don't think it's fair...
io hymen hymnaee io
io hymen hymnaee
thats really interesting. i never thought of it that way. i still have trouble justifying wrong actions that way. have you ever heard two wrongs dont make a right?
this isnt to say that i dont trade mp3's-i do, i just admit that what i do is wrong. no silly justificaition for me.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
Rip time is over 2 minutes per MP3. This takes almost all my CPU time. I don't think I could even play a game of solitare.
Since I don't have a CD changer in my PC, I can only RIP 1 disc at a time. I can queue multiple CDs or selected tracks from various CDs on Napster.
And last but not least, my CDs are in the living room and my computer is in the spare bedroom. I'd have to get off my ass and find the CD I want to rip. I don't think so.
There is also HTTPs and FTPs, Gnutella... Does anyone know other ways ? Of cource, buy the real CD.. Anyone ?
Here is what I want to see before I sign up: Napster to put up some VERRY high bandwidth servers (im talking 4 oc-3 time here) Put the entire library of sign-on record companies on it, and have them very high quality, 256K streams here only! Adjust the software so it searches the new super-Napster servers first. Open a FREE Napster super-server for independent artists to u/l songs to. (like MP3.com) Have the ability to quie songs that will go into a MP3 cd that is burnt and sent to us by snail mail for us low bandwidth users (and don't %$@%@$ uncompress them, I can fit a lot of songs on 640MB!) a 5$/month surcharge for this? And charge no more than $19.95us a month.
For Windows, FileNavigator is a full-featured Napster clone that can also share non-mp3 files (movies, music videos, etc.) on servers that support them (i.e. OpenNap servers).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Now that all you /.s have been enlightened to Audigalaxy and the AG satellite, I expect to break my 2.2GB served in 24 hrs record.
I have 34.6GB (& growing everyday) of MP3s available via AG, and you're all welcome to all of 'em..
Also, I think this is unfair to artists under non-RIAA labels such as Alternative Tentacles , with artists like Dead Kennedys, Butthole Surfers, D.O.A., and I think Husker Du.
The subscription fee was negociated with the record companies in return for the companies' dropping their suit that threatened to put Napster permanently out of business. There isn't anybody left to file suit.
If Napster starts actually dispersing royalties for music, I might actually use Napster. As it is now, I hear customers in my store where I sell CDs say things like "oh, I'll just download it"... I know a lot of the artists personally - let me assure you they are not all part of the mega-conglomerate that I dislike as much as anyone else. Some of the artists who are not getting royalties for the music are very much outside the box. I want them to keep recording; therefore, I personally want to pay to own their music. That is how they can buy more time in the recording studio.
Where's the forest? And what are all these trees doing here?
As much as I love (and use) the opennap servers, they are not a viable alternative to commercial napster. The servers have limited load, for one, and the (commercial) Napster users DON'T KNOW ABOUT IT. A friend of mine was recently banned by Metallica because she had a song titled "Metallica-Sucks.MP3"
She didn't know what to do, because her IP dosn't change, and she couldn't get around the block. I asked her if she tried Napigator or any of the alternatives. Her response? "What? You mean that there's more than just napster?"
She's just a typical college student. If the average student dosn't know about the options, who does?
You see, there was a time, believe it or not, where nobody knew what Napster was, either!
That's right, it is possible for people to learn about more P2P networks and clients if you give them a chance to grow.
Amazing, but true!
"And like that
The RIA is just to stupid to understand that they no longer have control, and they are dieing a slow death. We dont need them to charge us money so they can conrol what music they think we want. The Net will just route around that shit before the relize what hit them.
I for one dont even use Napster that much because its not very Reliable.
BWTF I like Audio Galaxy better anyway just not as much music.
Not so, because you don't DIAL UP to a Napster server. The server doesn't care if it's serving a modem or a T1 user. Actually, the high-bandwidth people tend to keep the pipes busy and squeeze out everyone else. If they go away, modem users are likely to find the servie more reliable and faster.
"Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
No, the Napster deal will totally kill all hope for subscription based services (unless Napster now fails). This is the sweatist deal t he music industry could possibly have brokered for themselves. They _need_not_sign_any_new_artists_
to make money. Specifically, if I'm an independent musician whosells my own CDs then the music industry (not me) recieves all the money from Napster when people use Napster to transfer my songs.
Actually, it's just as bad for artists who are signed by the music industry. The industry will never need to pay the artists for Napster based revinue. Why would the music industry ever make subscription based services where they might be forced to pay the artists for downloads. hell, they do not even need to pay for servers now since Napster is P2P.
Finally, if some independent label did set up a subscription based service why would any consumers buy their shit when they can just pay the Napster tax and DL all the same stuff + the main stream stuff. The only way to fix this is for everyone to switch to IRC for file trading.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
In fact, when the blank media levy went on in Canada, it simultaneously and explicitly became legal to have music that you never paid for. The details are crazy; I think it goes like this: I can lend you a CD, you can copy it, you give back the original, all is kosher; I cannot, however, make a copy of my CD and give it to you. See Canadian copyright levy on blank audio recording media.
-Gareth
Visit me at my site.
I would be prepared to pay for Napster, but in return I would like a defined QoS.
You will always end up finding that the *only* live version of Jimi Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner at Atlanta, in greater than 64kbps (ugh), and that isn't truncated before the last bar finishes its EL34 plate-melting feedback wail, is gonna be coming from the fastest 28.8k connection from a user on a Zimbabwean ISP, where the backbone connection is accomplished with a k56Flex modem on a noisy dial-up line.
And you, with your bidirectional cable, DSL or better, sitting there in front of an Internet connection where you're used to access that's almost as fast as reading stuff off your hard disk, will *still* have to sit there. Smoking cigarette after cigarette, sitting on your hands so that you don't move the mouse and somehow cause Windows to crash, you will each packet to safely make it down the rickety telephone lines from a 486SX-33 running on a portable generator in Africa, all the way across the Atlantic, and finally through all the myriad of hops to your machine.
You lose a packet somewhere along the way. You see the transfer rate drop to 0.00. It stays there for a second, then resumes its blistering fast 0.08kbps. Great. Only 7 more hours of this hell to go through, afraid to touch your computer or any others sharing your Internet connection, lest the fragile connection get broken.
And, of course, it does.
Just as the anodes in the output stages of Jimi's Marshall stacks start to droop and short against the grids, the neighbor of the super-rich guy in the village picks up the telephone. The click on the party line is the click that is heard half a world away: Transfer Error!
Napster is over.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Hey, I like Napster. It works. I tried Gnutella, and it sorta worked, but without a central database it sucked - searches took forever, and rarely came up with what I was looking for. I'll pay Napster good money to keep a good, quality index of songs (P2P or whatever), and to distribute some (hopefully most) of that cash to the artists. Especially if they pay the popular artists, and find some way to minimize the record companies percentage. Like that'll happen.
My concern is that a subscription-based Napster model will tend to promote "artists" like Britney Spears and N'Sync, and detract from the true value of the service.
What makes it worthwhile is finding music that you like which is not available anywhere else. Many remixes, songs "combined" with other songs, and obscure songs from the 80's which are no longer played on the radio (even 80's format stations) can be found through Napster. Say you wanted to find a techno remix of Pachelbel's "Canon in D Major". Until Napster came along, I didn't know this existed.
In a subscription model, it's easy to imagine record companies making only part of their catalogs available, the part that will give them the highest possible future sales.
Torg, come out of the spaceship. Nothing can stop Torg.
It's not like all of these MP3's simply appeared when Napster came about... They had been in existence for years before Napster, just being traded on less popular services....
If Napster goes subscription I'm certainly not going to use it... I'll simply go and put a Leech FSERVE up on an IRC network and go search for what I want on my own... Yes there is not the wide range of music that is available by searching in the "Napster" fashion but, the music is still there regardless...
To simply sum up... The software is out there to make MP3's... The programs are out there to ditrubute MP3's... And there are people out there that want them... Therefore... THEY WILL ALWAYS BE THERE SO STOP BOTHERING US WITH THEM.... (my polite message to the record execs..)
the RIAA (note the 2 A's) is just doing their job. They protect against piracy, bootlegging, and counterfeiting. This is the same sort of issue that people faced when warez came about. The people weren't selling the software (or in this case mp3s). They were just giving it away. Software piracy was deemed illegal. Are there still warez? yes. People somewhat try to enforce the copyright laws on software, but I doubt you would get arrested for downloading 1 program. Sure they can check. But it's not often that you see huge companies go after some lil 13 year old punk for downloading a $20 copy of a game. The same will probably be true with mp3s. No one is gonna kill you for having however many mp3s. I just wouldn't make copies and sell em on cds if I were you. =) That will count as piracy. If you went all the way with it and made actual cds and lil booklets it would be counterfeiting.
TresStatus
www.bsdpunk.com... We're the dot in dot dot dot...
--
Tres_Status
stephen
Of course, there is the other side. I collected a lot of our vinyl albums in MP3 for my girlfriend, who is album- rather than song-oriented. Some of her stuff is a tad obscure (Bob Dylan's Royal Albert Hall, or the pirate No Stone Unturned Stones album). You fight those Zimbabwean modems for a week or more, then one day...
vvvvVVVVVVRRRROOOOOMMMMMMMM the first transfer starts, 20kbps, 30kbps, levels out at 50kbps; the second starts, goes straight to 50kbps, the third starts, goes straight to 50kbps, the fourth naturally gets remotely queued but that doesn't matter, you are gripping the armrests and when transfer #1 finishes #2 kicks in, you rightclick #1 and play song, go to the library, take a few samples from different parts of the track, and the last bars are fading sweetly off into nontruncated bliss when you pop back to transfer and transfer #2 is finished and #5 has started, and within 10 minutes you have the entire album. Half an hour later you're popping the CD into the stereo for the female companion to admire. And life is good.
Oh, and while I usually get 800kbps or so ratings from bandwidth meter websites, on Napster I often see exactly the 1.5mbps down and 200kbps up I'm promised by BellSouth for my DSL connection.
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I believe that Teknap can do this, although I've never used it before so I can't verify this for sure.
JeremyI TechSeek- http://www.tech-seek.com
OK, so many of you here have been saying you'd like to pay, you don't really want to rip off your fav. artists. Now here's your chance. It'd be interesting to have a poll say 2mths after the fee is introduced to see how many of you here really DO pay. Or will you have a new reason you don't want to pay?
---
...it's the CPU speed for doing the MP3 encoding. The MP3 format is designed so that it takes quite a bit more horsepower to encode a song than to play it. My 450MHz Celeron makes short work of playing MP3's, but using all the resources it takes close to real listening time to encode them. A GHz level CPU with better cache would cut this some, but not enough to not be a nuisance. As the guy said, Napster (like a MP3 player) runs in the background. MP3 rippers don't.
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If you believe that their only goal is to protect against copyright, then thats on you, Its my belief that they have gotten to powerfull and are no longer needed, they basicly strip all artists of there right to THERE music by making them sign agreements to that fact.
If the newest albums come out on Napster as well as the charge, I am perfectly willing to pay a service charge.
Except that the high bandwidth users are also the ones hosting all the files for download. Unless Napster is going to buy a BUNCH of servers to handle the demand, Napster as you suggest it would be a ghost town with no music whatsoever.
"We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking." -Mark Twain
Ever hear of radio, dood?
The Napster/Bertelsmann Q&A says this:
Will Napster continue to offer a free service?
Yes! We are committed to creating a system in which users can choose to participate without paying any money. We realize that Napster is nothing without its user community -- you make us what we are. However, for a small membership fee we feel that we can facilitate an enhanced service that you'll find even more valuable and that will allow us to generate revenues to be able to make payments to artists and songwriters for music files that our users share with each other. We are working with Bertelsmann and other potential allies in an effort to work out the details of how all this will work and we will, of course, keep you fully informed as details become available.
The problem I see with this is follows: People who want to use napster will have to pay a subscription fee. So in order for ME to make MY mp3 (or whatnot) availble I will have to pay. But besides that - the people who primarly use napster are people who DONT want to pay in the first place. So when these people do not sign up for a subscription to napster, napster's whole service becomes useless. There will be no files avaiable to 'trade'. -Jay
lets see $10 per month per napster user, 50% to napster 50% to BMG. BMG continues to pay artists under its label the usual paulty sum.
How about if you download songs that you like that you like and will keep and listen to often you try to contact the artist and send them $10. You probably can't reach major artists like Ms Spears and co, but as far as independant artists are concerned if they thought that even 10% of the people who download their songs would pay $10 for a cd's worth of song(lenght not file size) I'm sure they would make it possible.
Of course BMG and other big labels will try to prevent this of course because it cuts them out of the picture. But then isn't that the lesson that napster is teaching us. Not that people want something for nothing. We already knew that. But that distribution of anything which can be digitally recorded doesn't need a middleman anymore. We can do it ourselves, and they don't like that.
--
Steve Jobs: We're better than you are.
Bill Gates: That doesn't matter.
'Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson...'
I haven't used it lately, by the way; but I did use it a bunch last year, mostly in the first half of 2000.
:)
I have never used Napster to download an entire album, except in one case (detailed later). All of my Napster usage was to find individual songs that I wanted, but was not about to pay the cost of an entire CD for. The problem is that I want one song, but I can't just buy one song at the store (singles CDs are as overpriced as album CDs). Given no real alternative, and yet still desiring the song, I used Napster. Probably got about forty or fifty songs, but no entire albums.
The only time I downloaded an entire album was when I wanted to find a particular song off the Swingers soundtrack. It's a song with almost no lyrics (at least, the lyrics are only at the end, and hard to make out), so I couldn't just do a text search to figure out what it was. So I downloaded the entire Swingers soundtrack, and listened to it one by one until I found the song: "Pick up the Pieces" by Average White Band.
Then I deleted the rest of the album.
The final irony: My mom bought me the Swingers soundtrack CD for Christmas this past year.
I guess my position is, as long as I can't get the music I want (which is to say, individual songs that are normally only available as part of an overpriced single or album), I'm going to go download them.
I did buy 20-30 regular CDs last year, as well. When I want an entire album, I buy it. When I want one song, I WOULD buy it, if it were available. Sucks to be the big labels; if they'd had a system available whereby I could have downloaded, for 50-99 cents a pop, MP3s of those 40-50 songs I got from Napster, I would easily have done that instead of wasting time trying to find good connections on Napster! The fools!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
A free alternative, too many features to list. Server and cients available, Linux and Windoze versions. Trade movies, applications, music, etc. www.edonkey2000.com
MP3's were always popular among the upper online community, its just since napster came about just about everyone and their aunt and grandma are now online downloading MP3's.. go ahead, charge people to use napster.. its the people that dont even know what a FTP server is that are gonna pay for it.. personally i have never used it to obtain a full album either, with the exception of some unrealesed stuff that you cant buy anyway.. i hear a song on the radio, download more by them and see if its worth it to buy the CD.. no more buying CD's like Static-X wisconsin death trip with 2 good songs on the entire cd.. but overall, napster going pay isnt the end of the world, there are still a buncha peer to peer file sharing programs out there.. keep on rockin, rappin, swayin, whatever genre you listen to...
Presumably the paying users are going to get some kind of service such as access to all new releases from the affiliated labels, and/or a guaranteed MP3 quality level.
However, with MP3 being what it is (no built in copy protection) how do they plan to stop people on the paying service from freely distributing these records to all the leechers on the free service (or other Napster type places)? I guess they could do some kind of CRC check or look at the id3 tags, but that's easy to get around. If they discontinue the free service, people will distribute to another network.
The music industry does not like MP3, they've been trying to find an alternative they can control. I don't understand why the labels have agreed to this move (by signing deals with Napster rather than sueing them) when it blatently doesn't give them control. Perhaps the people doing the agreeing aren't very informed.
--
That just a short while ago, Napster's representatives claimed it wasn't feasible to track specific files through their service for purposes such as removing copywritten material and compensating the copyright holders, but suddenly now that they're charging the consumer, and claiming to pay a little bit of compensation to the music owners, it's suddenly made to sound incredibly easy? Albeit after a few months...
I guess what they should have specified back when defending their inability to filter their content was that it isn't FINANCIALLY feasible. Poor Napster.... only seems able to take action when there are legal implications or considerable profit involved.
Sorry if this sounds trollish, I'm just sick of pro-Napster zealots refusing to admit that it's one of the smarmiest members of the online community, and frankly corrupts the very concept of online media distribution.
Here is what I see happening...once Napster gets bumped up to "legitimate" status, the precedent will have been set and Gnutella and all of the other various free Napster workalikes immediately become the next target of the RIAA. I wouldn't count on the "oh, I can just use OpenNap" fallback...I see those as only temporary alternatives...
...if a song cuts out in mid-download it is a pain ... Once money gets involved I will expect a much better quality of servers...
It'll be hard for Napster to meet those expectations. The song cutting out mid-download has very little to do with the quality of Napster's servers and _everything_ to do with Joe Blow on the other end. I haven't heard how they're going to improve that situation under the subscription scheme, if at all.
Unless, of course, the new Napster clients we all have to run will prevent us from shutting down our computers or dropping our ISP connection while there's a download in progress.
This packet was sent when I clicked on Shine On You Crazy Diamond after the search was finished (I replaced the username providing the MP3 with XXs):
Exchange: 192.168.0.5:1203 --> 208.184.216.64:8888
45 00 00 8B 00 00 40 00-40 06 D0 C6 C0 A8 00 05 E.....@.@.......
D0 B8 D8 40 04 B3 22 B8-81 55 B1 0D AE 08 C7 62
80 18 E2 40 12 19 00 00-01 01 08 0A 00 04 38 AC
0D 37 16 77 XX XX XX XX-XX XX XX XX XX 20 22 45
3A 5C 4D 70 33 20 4D 75-73 69 63 5C 50 69 6E 6B
20 46 6C 6F 79 64 5C 31-30 33 62 20 2D 20 53 68 Floyd\103b - Sh
69 6E 65 20 4F 6E 20 59-6F 75 20 43 72 61 7A 79 ine On You Crazy
20 44 69 61 6D 6F 6E 64-20 28 50 61 72 74 73 20 Diamond (Parts
31 20 2D 20 35 29 2E 6D-70 33 22 1 - 5).mp3"
After that was sent (and an ACK was received), this packet was received from Napster (again, XX is used to block the userid of the host of this MP3, though one of these numbers likely translates to the IP that hosted this file. :P):
Exchange: 208.184.216.64:8888 --> 192.168.0.5:1203
45 00 00 CB F3 AB 40 00-2E 06 EE DA D0 B8 D8 40 E.....@........@
C0 A8 00 05 22 B8 04 B3-AE 08 C7 62 81 55 B1 64
80 18 7D 78 C3 00 00 00-01 01 08 0A 0D 37 16 A0
00 04 38 AC 93 00 CC 00-XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX
XX 20 31 30 33 32 32 30-38 30 37 39 20 36 36 39 X 1032208079 669
39 20 22 45 3A 5C 4D 70-33 20 4D 75 73 69 63 5C 9 "E:\Mp3 Music\
50 69 6E 6B 20 46 6C 6F-79 64 5C 31 30 33 62 20 Pink Floyd\103b
2D 20 53 68 69 6E 65 20-4F 6E 20 59 6F 75 20 43 - Shine On You C
72 61 7A 79 20 44 69 61-6D 6F 6E 64 20 28 50 61 razy Diamond (Pa
72 74 73 20 31 20 2D 20-35 29 2E 6D 70 33 22 20 rts 1 - 5).mp3"
61 62 63 32 66 30 30 30-34 63 64 34 61 35 34 63 abc2f0004cd4a54c
37 62 36 35 37 61 31 37-32 65 65 38 34 30 61 64 7b657a172ee840ad
2D 31 32 33 38 34 31 33-30 20 39 -12384130 9
6699 in the second packet is probably the port number my client has to connect to in order to retrieve that packet. The hexadecimal string near the end of the second packet looks like an MD5sum to me, but I didn't finish grabbing the file so I can't tell (good song, but long, and I've MP3'd it from my CD already so I don't need another :)). BTW: 208.184.216.64 resolves to 208.184.216.64.napster.com and 192.168.0.5 is behind my firewall.
Anyway, this tells me that they can keep track of this sort of thing if they want to. But I kind of expected this; how else are they going to gauge royalty payouts, per-download charges, and the like in the future? I do notice, however, that they're a bit sloppy about revealing the directory structure of their users.
While this happens, a bit of scarcity and again "hard to find music online times" will come, until truly (free) alternatives start becoming adopted by the public from everywhere, but this will take time.
The bigger the collection we can get, the better the aid everyone will provide as individuals to any of their chosen alternative networks or distribution systems. This is very important, many are already complaining the lack of material on the many Opennap like servers. Having them chained together will surely help. Napster is not really that different from IRC, IRC is an interesting model for these servers to pass data among themselves so that searches can get better results, even if taking longer. Once found, the p2p model could still kick in with the good transfer speeds as usual. The official Napster servers are *not* all chained together. Maybe you have noticed, many times by connecting and disconnecting from the meta servers will give you different people online in your Hotlists, and the chat rooms.
Maybe a whole new protocol should be proposed, something like Internet Relay Transfer Protocol or similar, where a net of IRC like servers do exactly the function that the current Napster servers do, a kind of contact service. This should even be a standard Internet service, pretty much like Instant Messaging is now pushing to be a standard, and it began with just ICQ. Now look all the IM alternatives, but ICQ *still* allows free login, so it is still very popular. But Napster on the other hand... Well, they just introduced a very interesting concept, just like Mirabillis did a while back. Let's take the concept and push it ahead, i'd say.
In the meantime, before the fall of napster.com begins, while they still allow free access, it is better to take as much as possible, we may be the sole source in who knows which network or alternative the future will stump among us.
So yes, forget the easy to buy stuff, concentrate on rare, limited edition, whatever hard to get music you can find (eg in high bit rates). I only use Napster to download the kind of music i can never buy in my country, don't really care in the easy to find stuff. When the opportunity comes, i will sure buy just, CDs if just to provide a better encoding of my favorite music to share. No joke this whole Napster thing ended up being the most cheap never seen mass publicity the big Record Labels could never even dream of, now they can cut a little more on those expensive tours the had to give the artists to get listened at...
--
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So the record companies own Napster now. And the record companies are also suing Napster. So it's the record companies vs. themselves. So the record companies could probably intentionally lose the case for either side if they want. Now which side do you think they want to win? Why they would of course LOVE to see legislation that bans Napster and any Napster-like service out there. Then, they can much more easily force people to pay for music, just like the old days. Remember kids, when you had to either buy it or copy it from a friend if you wanted it? And you know what, there's not a damn thing we can do about it. 'God I hate politics' -- The Dead Milkmen -theStallion
Broke Bootleggers Belittle Benefits
A newly completed study by the Association of Redundant Statistics shows that people who used Napster because they didn't have the money to buy CDs, apparently also don't have money for a monthly music subscription.
When approached for comment, Napster creator Shawn Fenning replied: "Well, DUH!"
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
From what I have been told, Napster was blocked here at Kent for reasons steming more from the use of so much bandwidth... not the legal implications. Then I read about an obscure rule in our school's code, that states if you are caught in possession of MP3 files, you can be punished through strict disipliary probation. At any rate, what is everyone's opinion on this front?
Lucky for us... we have Opennap :)
Subscription-based services for digital information will go nowhere. It'll just be like the web was when corporations first got involved. For instance, starwave was a media site that used to give out free basketball stats to whoever wanted them. Then ESPN bought them out and came up with Sportszone, and started a subscription-based service to get the exact same things that you could get for free through other means. Its popularity, as you might expect, went down the tube, and they went back to giving that stuff away free, and using advertising instead as an indirect source of revenue generation. Napster asking people to fork over makes about as much sense as your local radio company asking you to fork over for every 15 minutes you listen to their music.
The only way subscription-based would work for Napster would be if they set up some form of mp3 cartel that could keep people from getting this stuff for free, but with the product already available scattered amongst its users, it's too late for this. As it is, the coded thinking behind Napster wasn't too difficult to keep from inspiring knock-offs -- you have a central database server that gets updated with each logon of all the songs of a user, and you search that for all the users who might have your song, and then leave the clients to connect on their own. The only thing special about Napster here is their brand-naming, not the concept. They could leverage that into making the Napster product super-easy to install and with a built-in advertisement display, and then get that onto as many computers as possible. If Napster users do in fact buy more music, Napster's best chance would be to link their audience to on-line means of purchasing that music.
Another possibility, MAYBE, would be to make sure that Napster itself was responsible for serving off high-end mp3s, and not something that was poorly ripped by some kids in their basements. But to make that work, they'd have to have better music turnover than the industry is currently capable of (in order to keep the fans coming back) to keep people coming back to Napster for the latest thing.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
* This is a bit absurd, no? Napster allowed users to share files without paying the record companies. Now they will charge users for sharing files without paying the record companies.
* $10 for a (theoretically) unlimited amount of files is a good deal, but there has to be a cut for the recording . If not, the only thing that's changed is that we can call it "paid piracy".
* I can't see Lars Ulrich from Metallica get any happier over this.
* If they're going to start charging for their services, they'd better start working on some decent customer service. With the thousands of users on Napster, somebody is bound to have questions and expect answers. If you pay for something and it doesn't work, you deserve an answer.
* I imagine much higher activity on the mp3 channels on IRC...
Yes, but this is a pretty simple concept...you get what you pay for. You would be saving money, but there are many downsides to it.
Joe Schmoe buys two CD's for $30. He now has two tangable pieces of property to listen to, take to his buddies place, take in the car or wherever, put on a shelf or throw at the wall and cook in the microwave.
Now, with Napster, you may get a lot of music for cheap...unlimited dl's for $30 possibly, but you really lose the flexibility of having that tangable property. You lose a lot of portabilty, even with portable mp3 players. But really, if you lose your harddrive to a power surge, etc, you loose your investment, unless you have them backed up on a CDR. So, in order to make it worth while IMHO, you need to invest in a CDR and a protable mp3 player. Also, don't forget a DSL or some other speedy internet connection just to make dl'ing worth while.
I just don't think the technology is mature enough yet.
614 CDs * ~10 tracks/CD * ~3MB/track ~= 1 20GB HD
So, at $150, he's overpaying...
I know, it sounds a bit crass because most of us
...though I don't think it'll crash and burn, I
happen to like Napster... but Napster killed the
great art of the MP3 hunt. It took away the thrill
of hunting down a rare song on IRC, the web, etc
(granted it also took away the frustration)...
for one do not plan on subscribing!
The only unfortunate thing is that Napster decreased
the popularity of MP3 FTP Search Engine... so
it will be harder to hunt!
Modernly following the instinct of the hunt...
~- Llah -~
> I also don't understand why people tell me that
> it's easier to download an album off of napster
> that they already own compared to just creating
> the mp3s themselves. Can somebody please
> enlighten me?
The formula is simple. For those with low processing power/high bandwidth, getting MP3s from the Net is easier. For those with high processing power/low bandwidth, it's easier to roll your own (making MP3s takes a lot of processing juice). For those with low brain power/access to the Net, it's easier to download than learn how to rip MP3s from a CD.
See? Simple.
Virg
True, the average joe may not want to go through that trouble. Or just won't know how.. but I think there's a fair amount of people that know how to burn audio CDs... And I've seen average people put together nice jewel cases for their CDs without too much trouble.. so why not add this ability as an extra benefit of being part of the napster service? That way, the RIAA or whoever else is gettin their cash, and you're getting your CD...
Don't know if this is a feasable idea, but just a thought.. :)
1. to me the whole idea of napster wanting people to pay for their service goes against the whole idea of napster in the first place, that music should be free. 2.i would not be surprised to see gnutella and openNap become pay sites in the future as well.many people are scared to use IRC or dont have the time to hunt down the tracks they want. Napster wins, and Joe regular web surfer losses
Well now they are going to get paid to get people to steal music, not that it's a bad thing......
Smev
1. It's very rare that anyone is offline when I search. I would guess that about 80% of the time, the first result I try works. Only once in a great while do I ever need to try a third or fourth result.
2. If Napster goes subscription-only, the selection will decrease, since fewer people will be willing to use it.
3. I originally went to OpenNap because I couldn't find what I wanted on official Napster servers. Again, I've never been disappointed with OpenNap.
4. True, payments to artists from CD sales are pitifully low. That's still no excuse to condone putting more money into the RIAA's pockets, without giving any more to the artists?
5. Like I said, 99% of what I download is not controlled by the RIAA. (The 1% was one time I tried a song before buying a CD.) Why should the RIAA get paid when they have nothing to do with what I download?
(By the way, how much is the RIAA paying you to troll?)
o/~ All God's children shall be free in Pirates of the Caribbean, when we reach that Magic Kingdom in the sky... o/~
614 CDs * ~10 tracks/CD * ~3MB/track ~= 1 20GB HD
So, at $150, he's overpaying...
A 3MB track encoded at any remotely decent bitrate (even just 192kbps) would be approximately 2 minutes and 4 seconds long. A CD with 10 tracks that are barely 2 minutes long each probably wasn't worth purchasing in the first place, anyways.
Most CDs have more than 10 tracks, too. I'd guess that most albums have 12-15 tracks varying from 3-6 minutes in length. This means most tracks would be somewhere from 4-9MB. 40-140MB per CD.
This would require somewhere from 25-85GB. I'd say somewhere around 50GB.