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Napster To Abandon MP3 For .NAP
simong writes "As reported in The Register Napster is to abandon the MP3 format for a proprietary .nap format being developed with Bertelsmann. " As Cliff pointed out "dirt.nap is about what Napster amounts to these days anyway." You can get more more information from Yahoo's Reuters feed.
Yea for the BSD license. NAP is just an incompatible version of OGG/Vorbis.
Honestly, how many people heard about Napster and thought, "I can wrest control from the evil corporations of the world", and how many thought, "free music!"?
No, retard, check the alt.english.usage FAQ and you will clearly say that while the British (and the rest of the english speaking world) treats proper nouns as plural (such as "Microsoft are releasing...") while the American English dialect treats them singularly ("Microsoft is releasing..."). Read up before you troll, jackass.
You've got a small number of people that will pay and sign on initially. Most other people (including myself) are going to wait to see if it actually flies before dropping any hard earned cheddar.
Since there's only a few initial users sharing files, the amount of available music won't be as great. And the stuff they have will be extremely bogged down because, as mentioned, there are so few people trading. What happens now is that the initial reports come back from the front that the new system sucks a nut (regardless of it's technical merit) and Napster dies.
Lets face it, Napster is dead, and using yet another format isn't going to help it. End of story. Don't worry about turning the lights off when you leave; the RIAA will reposess them in the morning.
I thought the people with skills, or the script kiddies still in diapers, were bringing down efnet?
Well, if you take a quick look at the post (and has a very slow or malfunctional brain), you might just find it informative.
War is one of the most horrible things a human can be exposed to. And one of the worlds largest industries.
Since when is Louis Armstrong an obscure jazz artist? You need to learn about cdnow.com
With Kazaa being positioned as a good candidate for a napster replacement, quite a few people will end up with it. At least the mp3 sharing market has fragmented, otherwise we would have the successor to SamrtTags.
Chris Cothrun
Curator of Chaos
Bleh!
Stopping posting Napster stories. Nobody cares anymore. Keep it to "Stuff that matters". Maybe just one more when they finally die.
will there be the ability to do a conversion back to MP3 once you have it? This will severely limit the number of users from the non-standard platforms.
I know that the format will be easily cracked (as many people will mention on this thread today) and I know hardly anyone will use it (as more people will post), but for those people who are actually interested in it, would it actually be useful?
Most people download MP3's to burn to CD to listen to later. Would they at least convert to WAV to allow for burning?
it needs to either recognize one of the MOST common filetypes on the net .ZIP as such or bow out. I like the intelligent downloads but the categorizing is LAME. It ignoes the directory structure and presents everything in this silly list it has arranged and you CANNOT MOVE A FILE FROM ONE CATEGORY TO ANOTHER, only within the assigned category.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Go check out: The blurb about Napster as a company.
In particular:
Funding
Napster, Inc. recently closed a $15 million Series C venture capital funding round. The round was led by Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, with additional investments from Angel Investors LP and other existing investors. As part of the investment in Napster, Hummer Winblad partners Hank Barry and John Hummer joined the Board of Directors and Hank Barry assumed the role of interim CEO.
I think that this means that they are not entirely free to all "jump ship and do something else". When you accept funding for your company, there are all sorts of things you have to agree to, and I wouldn't be surprised if the VC's are hounding them to do SOMETHING, to get that damn money pit back above water.
> I don't really think there need to be any more Napster stories now
Naw, I wouldn't mind knowing when Napster gets liquidated. Between Morpheus and BearShare, I haven't used Napster in ages (of course, they're next).
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I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
(* Does WMA actually deliver on this promise of 1/2 filze size with superior sound? I've never messed with .WMA becase 1) Mirosoft is evil and I don't want them controlling my media and 2) MP3 is fine for me).
Wow, there's a technically informed decision. Frauenhofer isn't exactly a saint either. If you want to base your format on software politics, why aren't you using Vorbis?
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I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Here is where you ask not what your fellow AC's can do for you, it's what you can do for your fellow AC's. And then you declare your intention to do that not because it is easy, but because it is hard. Then someone takes a shot at you.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
...no, you got it right the first time. Go back to your coffee.
Work is for people who lack the imagination to play.
I don't understand why they don't all jump ship and do something else. It's plain obvious that they're never going to be "allowed" to do what they want to do. They'll keep bringing them to court until they run out of money. Is it because they have investors who will break their legs and other bits if they fail completely?
This is getting ridiculous. First they filter everything.. and just when you thought that the RIAA et al couldn't pick on them any worse they decide they should switch away from MP3. They might as well just have a court rule that Napster can no longer use eletricity in their operations. Are you kidding me? I'm guessing the number of people who will be using Napster when they make the switch will be countable on my fingers and toes, if that. I don't think the Winamp developers and other players will bother implementing a codec for this crap, and even if Napster makes one, I doubt they'd even include it since it's just plain stupid.
I kind of feel bad for them, though.
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It's a good thing the RIAA sued Napster instead of cooperating -- if they had played Let's Make a Deal, they could have done something evil like this back when Napster had 30 million users and gotten the bulk of them to use their new, tightly controlled standard.
:) They just didn't like someone muscling in on their turf. The real wannabe coopters in the whole deal was Napster.
Note that the whole business plan of Napster as a for-profit company was to leverage their userbase into a bargining arrangment with the RIAA that would give Napster a cut of online music sales.
I don't think that the RIAA is saavy enough to "coopt" anyone. (That's Microsoft's job
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
ROTFL! Can I use that as my sig? Genius!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Remember, if signatures are illegal, only outlaws will have signatures :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
In one place it's "your", in another place it's "you're". I was confused too.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Congratulations, you mentioned your personal reasons for not using Microsoft and are now "Flamebait". Welcome to the club!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
That's giving the customer what they want, for sure :)
Like it or not, MP3 is the standard, and people aren't going to change away from it unless another format allows greater benefits for the end user (better quality/compression ratio) or the other format is aggressively pushed by Microsoft (not that WMA isn't necessarily better than MP3, but I hardly expect Microsoft to let it succeed or fail on its own merits).
Nothing in file sharing is really going to change unless media companies really go after MP3 traders for their actions, which won't happen because of the massive potential backlash. You can destroy the Napster of the month for years, but all that will happen is people will trade underground the way they did before Napster made it so easy.
On the plus side, torpedoing easy-to-use file sharing programs is going to boost overall computer literacy, as people learn to track down their MP3s on Usenet and FTP sites and/or apply DeCSS-style cracks to the wide variety of "secure" music formats. If you think of the 'net as an ecosystem, the destruction of one of the larger trees in the forest is just causing explosive adaptation among Internet users. If the RIAA had been careful, they could have preserved Napster long enough to channel most of its users into more profitable channels. As it is, they've destroyed the biggest centralized point for MP3 trading, and they'll never have another chance to influence so many music traders at once again.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Not only was Napster great for getting music that isn't currently in print, it was great for getting music that never was or will be in print.
A lot of live or studio outtake stuff will never make it into print, due to either artist reluctance, contract BS, or other legal impediments. Sure, much of it is "available" if you want to spend a lot of time and money BSing around on the trading circuit, but it was nice to be able to get a song here or there.
2a) That's what a good firewall--like the free-as-in-beer Zone Alarm--is for. When it asks to connect to the Internet, you tell it "No way, Jose!" and "Remember this answer".
2b) You can uninstall the spyware afterward without affecting the performance of the Satellite at all.
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Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
That's it. Napster is now a non-entity. I bailed when they started making it harder to use, locking out Napigator (or trying!) and removing all the songs I wanted to grab. I've moved on to AudioGalaxy, and I'll move on to something else when that bites the dust.
I don't really think there need to be any more Napster stories now. Because the plain and simple facts are, Napster no longer offers what people originally wanted to use Napster for. And it looks like it will be offering less and less in the future. I think it's finished.
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Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
This has got to be the most outrageous idea since someone thought it would be cool to have changeable covers on their laptops. They are now missing the entire idea that they relied upon for forming the company. It is no longer easy. Now I can only play your files with your player and next, after AOL buys Napster, I can only play them on your AOL machine. Where are we headed. I want my MP3. Its easy, widespread, and is high quality. Its not for audiophiles, but you know.
And ogg vorbis? With a name that rolls off the tounge like that, I'm sure it'll be a household name in no time. "Hey mommy I want an ogg vorbis player for xmas?" Riight.
"Mommy, I want an MPEG audio layer III player for Christmas!"
Also note that both "Emm-Pee-Three" and "Ogg Vohr-Biss" have 3 syllables. Neither is inherently easier to say than the other. And besides, Ogg Vorbis is named after characters from Terry Pratchett! How much cooler can you get than that? ;-)
Isn't it ironic, don't you think ? .dot com and use the shares in the john
You've bought a
With apologies to A. Morrisette
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I use a Mac and don't have an ISDN, DSL, satellite, or cable connection - so I'm stuck using IRC channels. It sucks and I can never find what I look for - which is exactly how the RIAA wants it. If anybody can show me a decent program that works, I would really appreciate it. (I already tried Macster, Napster, Mactella, and LimeWire)
== Paul Rickard, Editor of The Microsoft Boycott Campaign ====
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
But instead, they destroyed Napster and along with it their last chance to coopt the music-trading community.
Like that old guy said, If you strike [Napster] down, [the music-sharing community] will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Good point. Oh, uh, by the way, Microsoft Office has how many hundred million users?
:)
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
The PREVIEW button appears to be broken when I post before my first cup of coffee. Somebody fix that.
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Ah, screw it... I haven't had enough coffee this morning to live up to that task. heh. Feel free.
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It's an impressive feat to put the last nail in your own coffin while your on the inside!
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Read my entire argument. I chose MP3 because everything uses it - the same reason most consumers will also choose MP3.
I made a decision to stay away from WMA primarily because it isn't useful to me, and second because I dislike Microsoft's policies and behavior with regards to Windows and the like. I never said Frauenhofer was a saint; rather, I have a particular dislike for many of Microsoft's practices, and thus I try to avoid them when possible.
All these formats have a tough road ahead of them. .MP3 is so FIRMLY entrenched in the market that it could take years before people give it up, if ever:
.MP3. They know that all their software works with it, they know what to do with it, they are aware of its limitations, and they know how to work around them. Expecting people to jump ship to a new format, just because it is available, especially when it offers DECREASED flexibility is also foolish. Consumers seem more than happy with the compression and sound quality of MP3 - it would take something truly amazing to come along to convince them to change. WMA and its 1/2 file size (supposedly at the same quality *) doesn't seem to be doing it.
.WMA becase 1) Mirosoft is evil and I don't want them controlling my media and 2) MP3 is fine for me).
1) hardware: lots of people are selling hardware MP3 players for PDAs, Cars, pants pockets, and home stereos. Anyone who thinks consumers will throw these away so soon is foolish. Lots of people I know buy players that only play MP3. Many of these are not upgradeable. They will be around for a long time, and MP3 will be too.
2) software: lots of software already exists for ripping CDs into MP3s. iTunes has done wonders for introducing some of the less technical folk to digital music. Lots of people I know use musicmatch and realjukebox. These programs aren't going to magically stop working, and the MP3 files they produce won't either. Winamp, Musicmatch, iTunes, RealJukebox and their brethren will be around for a long time...
3) habit: people are used to
In conclusion, I don't see any reason people would leave MP3 for a new format any time soon. This i especially true for new formats with confusing DRM that restricts people from playing music whereever they go. Consumers don't want the hassle of backing up license keys to their music. They already bought it. Why do they need to license it?
(* Does WMA actually deliver on this promise of 1/2 filze size with superior sound? I've never messed with
Napster (within the context of a company that is licensing a technology) is a single entity, thus treating it as plural is just wrong. Now, if each employee of Napster invidually licensed something, it would be plural. It's simple, but it seems like 90% of Slashdot submitters and commenters can't get it right.
That's just another reason why breaking off with Britain was a good thing.
I think we can look to Napster to learn about how the business model for music distribution works when you're working with the music industry. Napster was an important force because of it's user base when it emerged, the music industry wanted it both ways. They wanted to be part of a popular site, and they wanted the retarded level of control with their imaginary "secure" music distribution systems that they guaranteed Napster became so assy that the reason they bought it was removed.
The only model that made sense for Napster was the one that was initially discussed. The music industry allows a subscription based service which is "all you can download." Now we're stuck with some SDMI still born
In any case, here's some links to what I use these days:
The best Gnutella client: LimeWire
eDonkey
Audio Galaxy
You can actually get this to work on Linux? I've tried everything I can think of, and all I get is a tiny window that can't be resized. I tried doing research on the Web and Usenet, but all anyone ever talks about is how difficult it is to set up. I don't think I saw a single person who got it to run correctly.
BTW, I'm using the latest LimeWire with the latest jre on Redhat 7.1 (it was a chore just to get java functioning at all on Redhat). Has anyone solved this "tiny window" problem? I saw several others referring to it on Usenet, but no solutions.
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"Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it."
"Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it."
--Henry David Thoreau
Thanks for the suggestion, but I found where the problem lies. There was a bug in the original 1.6 release that prevented window resizing on the "Welcome" window, though apparently some WMs like Sawfish let you resize the window regardless of what the app says (I use IceWM by the way, though I tried WindowMaker and Enlightenment and neither of them worked either).
Anyway, the LimeWire folks released a new version today (1.6b) that fixed the problem. I downloaded that, and the problem was fixed. Simple as that.
I agree with you, LimeWire looks like a great app, and seems to run in Linux better than in Windows. I suppose I could whine about it not being free (as in speech), though I'm content to just keep my mouth shut and use it for the moment. :-)
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"Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it."
"Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it."
--Henry David Thoreau
Napster never had a chance to become better. They were too busy fighting the RIAA to do anything about it. Of course new services are better, but they're just a bunch of me-too's.
It's kind of like when DOOM came out, and then about a year later, there was about 50 other games like DOOM that had newer and better features. All the game magazines were talking about these things as DOOM-killers, and way better than DOOM. Well, no shit. It was a year old.
Napster started a revolution, and some MBA's got together, and decided they could make a dollar, so they started up their own service. But, they did nothing original... they just improved on an old idea. You have to respect that.
If manufacturs pick up on it I'll be able to the same thing with ogg files. But I don't see the same convenience coming out of formats like wma, liquid audio and the like.
Sorry but something has got to give and as a consumer I'll expect it to come from the record companies.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Oh, and it isn't CD quality. That alone kills it. Whatever they charge must be lower than what a CD costs. Much lower.
And I want to know what their copy protection scheme is. I want to be able to download from my PC, transfer it to my laptop or .nap player, or burn it to my newly purchased CD-RW and eventually be able to play those files in my car during those long cross country trips when I pass through bum-f*** Kentucky and all I can get is Bluegrass stations and Baptist ministries.
And did I mention that I use linux as my desktop at home?
I buy CDs when I can. I used Napster to get maybe a handful of songs and wasn't enthused. If the record companies want to get a person like me to purchase songs off the Internet they must charge a reasonable price. And from where I'm sitting, even a buck is too much.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
The most interesting element (to me) of your list is one neither of you directly mentioned -- the switchover to payment systems (not just ours...) that would allow merchants to accept payments as small as you're expecting to pay. I wish that folks could go with a "tipjar" model and just help the artists they like directly, but that's a bit idealistic on my part I guess. People say they want to tip, but tipping an artist requires a bit of effort (and money).
Music fans are used to paying nothing, but what they don't seem to believe is that with a little voluntary cooperation, artists & fans could completely bypass the RIAA quintopoly (an arm of which has now completely taken over Napster) and have something truly wonderful (for everyone except the RIAA).
JMR
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
Another format to crack!
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
I'm sorry if this sounds inflamatory, but does anyone really care? Does anybody still use Napster here? (And I mean, servers run by Napster, Inc.) I dunno, but it's been ages since I've used Napster, and ever since the lawsuits, the blocking of "unofficial clients", the filter-by-name, filter-by-audio-fingerprint, the subscription service and most important - the huge decline in Napster users, who really cares what Napster, Inc. does now?
Yes, Napster was awesome in it's prime before all the hoopla. It was great because it was the one single point of search that most everybody used. Now, there are dozens of different mp3 / audio / video / media / everything search engines and none is incredibly more useful than the other... because none have such a hugely solid user base than Napster did.
So, I have a question for everybody here - when you're looking for music online, what do you use? I'm using the opennap servers on napigator (via gnapster).
http://www.talknerdy.org
Actually, yes, Napster have licensed Adobe's most advanced encryption technology. A ".NAP" is a
Tell your friends about xenu.net
[cough] monopoly [cough]
- Have a picture
>Now, back on topic. Any bets on how many days before Napster relaunches that a .nap to .mp3 converter program is released?
How about... never? Because absolutely no one will use Napster or its proprietary format, so there will be no demand for or interest in a converter program?
- Have a picture
Am I safe in assuming the Linux version does not do any of this nastyness? Has anyone checked?
Another thing was amateur remixes. I used to type in the name of any popular song when I was bored to see the remixes people had put together. (My favorite of all time was Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" with the Super Mario Brothers music.)
I'm pondering making a Freenet site all about Nirvana MP3's, since it's taking a long time for mainstream music to find its way into Freenet. (But if I do it, and Geffen asks, it's not me.)
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"Here to discuss how the AOL merger will affect consumers is the CEO of AOL."
grep -ri 'should work'
Actually it can handle more than one server at a server at a time, you just have to try the newer versions.
Napster can now truly say, "We suck."
Stick a fork in their ass and turn 'em over. They're done.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
I disagree. I know that I myself would happily pay money to Napster, and even the RIAA , if I could swap MP3's like the original Napster. No DRM, no proprietary formats. Pay for access, and let Napster, the RIAA, and the artists sort out amongst themselves how to divy up my money. I'm philosophically opposed to renting music (that is enforced through technology). As long as you keep paying, you keep getting access. Stop paying, and you lose access. You do not lose what you paid for. I'd willingly pay $20 per month for that kind of a service.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
I've played with Gnutella and its children since it was first unleashed on the world by those crazy cats at Winamp (and subsequently yanked by their corporate mama). It's good, especially when you want to find stuff like the kopywrited sekrit OT III texts, DeCSS, or any other , but it's not designed from the ground up for music. That's what made Napster different, and for looking for music, better. Make it for music, make it good, and make it easy for the newbies, and people will flock to it.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
Not if you ease into it... Throw open the doors, Napster like before. Just hand over your credit card, sign up, get a month free. After a month, you get a warning message that if you continue accessing, you will be charged. Sure, you'll have people continuing to sign up for trial memberships, but is a 95% compliance rate better or worse than 0% of users paying to use the service?
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
For more mp3s also try #mp3_collective and #mp3jukebox both of those channels are packed full of fast fserves packed full of mp3s.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
I'm not so sure about that. I'm not sure what the "British usage" is, but I can think of another example where it's not so cut and dry. That example would be "data." Most people like to think of data as a plural noun, while I almost always think of it in the singular sense. It really drives me crazy when people say that "the data are" when it should quite clearly be "the data is." One can look at the context to really see whether it should be thought of as singular or plural -- most of the time, but there are cases where it's ambiguous. It's those cases that most irritate me. The cases where it's clear that it's plural don't irritate me as much, although they still do because it's also clear that it would be easy to rephrase the statement to make it singluar instead. And yes, I know all about datum, but who the heck uses that anymore?
Think about it. Do you say:
"The data show that you're broke."
or
"The data shows that you're broke."
Throw in some fluff and you might have
"The data in the spreadsheet show that you're broke."
or
"The data in the spreadsheet shows that you're broke."
It's still unclear, because you don't know if you're referring to one piece of data in the spreadsheet or a bunch of individual pieces of data in the spreadsheet, or all those individual pieces of data in the spreadsheet taken as a whole, representing a superset of "data."
But, turn it around a little and it makes it a little clearer:
"The spreadsheet, which contains data, show that you're broke."
or
"The spreadsheet, which contains data, shows that you're broke."
Now get rid of the extraneous fluff and you have:
"The spreadsheet show you're broke."
or
"The spreadsheet shows you're broke."
Now it's clear that the second form is correct, as a spreadsheet is clearly a singular noun. It's also clear that the data, when referred to earlier without the fluff, was referring to a single piece of data that happens the refer to many smaller pieces of data (just like a node in a binary tree is a single entity although it actually refers to several other items within the node).
Either that or I simply don't understand how the plurality of nouns applies to words that can be either singular or plural, in which case I don't care much.
I want to DL music because I can't buy the music I want locally here. I usually import a 8-a dozen CDs a year. When what I want isn't on radio and isn't in the local shops here, you bet your ass I want to hear it somewhere before I buy it. 2 years ago when mp3s were common I DL a couple of songs a week and buy from a dozen different artists. I would try a few songs from new artists and buy their CD if I liked it. 100% of the artists I buy today I had not heard of 3 years ago.
Now, since mp3 sites are gone from the web and I don't like to use the usenet, irc, or nap type stuff, I don't buy music anymore. There are only about 3-4 artists I like enough to buy CDs w/o having to listen to them. Moreover, I don't know when new CDs are released. Since my music isn't available locally, there are no TV ads, etc telling me something new is available. I have to go out to look for websites for info like that. I don't bother.
What would allow me to sample more music and buy more CDs? Web based mp3 sites only. I use a modem. I want to SEE info on exactly what I'm DL'ing before spending 30min to get it. Would I try a new format if it were free? No. I'm not going to waste time learning the ins and outs of a new format. If I were that desperate I would be using gnutella now wouldn't I?
So why am I so lazy that I won't spend a little time to find free music? Because I have a job. I work, I make $. $ to buy CDs. Except there are no CDs I want to buy now, because there's nowhere I can sample any.
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Their .NET-worth is in the toilet. This is .NOT what they .NEED right .NOW. They will .NEVER get .NEW users this way. I guess the big companies have succeeded again. .NOT good .NEWS.
Jason
Really, I found Napster to be a very poor service: there was no file resuming, downloading from multiple sources, and it was really difficult to find less mainstream-music. Some of the new services like Kazaa are much better, at least from my experience.
Copyright infringement? Didn't Napster already try to sue the Offspring (band) for selling Napster t-shirts a while back?
/.
Also, does Napster have any patents on the idea of p2p filesharing? Of course p2p is as old as the Internet itself, but still, patents have been given for more idiotic things, like the "download patent" being discussed today on
Hmm I use Morpheus all the time, and it's definitely better than Napster, at least to find the music I'm into (triphop, d&b, lounge). On Napster I could hardly ever find any of this kind of music. I tried bearshare a while back and personally wasn't impressed at all. Another program I've been very impressed with is Direct Connect although it's mainly for movies, not mp3s.
I'm also interested to see what Ian Clarke (founder of freenet) is doing with his startup Uprizer. Clarke has hinted that uprizer will provide some kind of compensation scheme for content producers. He envisions a system where it will become very easy to become a patron. So there could be 200,000 12-year old patrons supporting a band with their pocketmoney. I think that people really don't want to rip off the artists they love. However, in this day and age, there is simply no acceptable legal means of doing so on the internet.
that's it, it's over. napster is dead. abandoning a standard .mp3 format to switch to a proprietary .nap format is the nail in the proverbial coffin. let's just bury napster and embrace gnutella.
E.
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This Post has been brought to you by the letter "E".
Perhaps you should exercise your PREVIEW button more often.
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...is if they were to somehow restrict its reproduction to MiniDiscs. Or maybe they'll be available for play on DIVX drives? .NAP files will see 100% market saturation faster than you can say "you'd thought by now suits would have learned from the inevitable consumer rejection and pentultimate failure of these inane, limiting corporation-driven formats".
With that one-two knockout combination, I'm sure that
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
"How do you spell 'drug prohibitionist'? Easy, it is spelled: b i g o t."
and how do you spell 'drug user'? Easy, it is spelled: f u c k i n g m o r o n
Slashdot is basically all yesterdays stories today. It is not a news gathering site, it is a community where people share news they think other people would be interested in. A story is ALWAYS going to be on some other news site first.
So bugger off.
I wonder how much money will be spent on this joint venture? It's ALL WASTED.
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goto http://www.audioagalaxy.com
It's as good as Napster ever was.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
It's a shame that what was once one of the most respected net services has sold out and become what amounts to little more than a joke. 10 years down the road, when we think of Napster, it won't be for the great run it had in its heyday, it'll be for the washed out shell of what it's become -- a whore to the major labels.
I truly wish Napster would have admitted defeat and died gracefully as a martyr. They remind me of Full House in its 29th season -- just go away already.
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Josh Woodward
Josh Woodward
So now we can pirate Metallica and Dr. Dre's music in a DIFFERENT codec. That'll teach us!
Jason Byrons
The Abstruse One
"You all laugh at me because I'm different. I laugh at you because you're all the same."
The ABSTRUSE One
Jason Byrons
"You all laugh at me because I'm different
I laugh at you because you're a
Nah. They just convert it to Mime-encoded text, then to PDF, and, finally, put a big black square over it.
You've answered your own question--'data' is the plural form of the word 'datum'. Regardless of "who uses that anymore", 'data are' is the correct usage.
I had some anal biochem profs. They beat us with sticks if we wrote it wrong.
Ever since they blocked all non uptodate clients, I havent been able to connect anyway. I really dont care, I only use opennap and audiogalaxy. (which are staying with mp3 for now)
I am !amused.
Users to abandon .NAP for .MP3
More
Exactly. Cheap.
The only real way to reduce pirating is to make legally aquiring stuff so cheap and convenient that most people won't bother to priate.
If the RIAA could learn to skim money off people instead of trying to gouge them, they might not waste so much time/money fighting people.
Of course, maybe they've already factored that in and figured they could maximize their profits through gouging. I mean, really, who cares about making the world a better place while making some money when you can just screw people and make lots of money?
*splorf!* HAhahahaha! I wish I had some mod points, cause I would mod this: (+1, fucking funny)
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Excuse me, but "proactive" and "paradigm"? Aren't these just buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important?
Suppose you could get Acme Office (100% similar product) for free
People would just go to OpenOffice.org and download it. That's what the Dutch are doing.
Will I retire or break 10K?
but since bandwidth is cheap (if you have high speed access then each marginal byte you send is virtually free)
But there are still fixed costs involved, such as $200,000 to move house to an area where non-draconian broadband is available.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I would expect that these people should be willing to pay to download music, and it shouldn't matter whether it's in a proprietary format, unless players are not made widely available.
If a song is published only in a proprietary format with access controls, nobody in the industry will care whether the song is playable on Solaris. Or BSD. Or BeOS. Or Linux. Or any workstation operating system other than Windows or Mac OS. Or any non-workstation operating system such as embedded firmware for car stereos.
In fact, I would expect that users who really want to pay for downloadable music should be largely indifferent as to whether the format is proprietary or not (again, assuming availability of players).
This assumption is WAY too important to just gloss over as you do. MP3 players (and soon, Ogg Vorbis players) fit in a fellow's pants pocket; computers running RealPlayer, QuickTime, and WiMP don't.
And then there's the issue of the access control. "No, you may not play this in your car. No, you may not play this more than three times without re-buying it. No, you may not play this on a multiuser operating system because the song is not licensed for commercial use. No, you may not play this to a speaker with analog connections or unencrypted digital connections, or to a speaker that hasn't been tamper-proofed."
Will I retire or break 10K?
"Oh, umm, well... That shouldn't be a problem. We'll just ask everyone to ummm, add support, for the new
In other words. Unless napsters are going to make plug-ins for every software MP3 player, and get companies to make portable NAP players. I can only see this as digging there own hole.
Do they think Napster users want to share music if they have to pay for it? They just need to bury it and give in. The .nap format is just the final blow to stop the faint pulse.
while ( horse == dead ) { beat(); }
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
"Drug related crime" is a misnomer, "prohibition related crime" is the more accurate and correct phrase.
The real tragedy of Napster is that we may never again have such easy access to the more obscure music that isn't currently "in print." In its heyday, Napster helped introduce me to some old jazz and blues recordings that I would never have been able to find in a record store.
Unfortunately, the court cases surrounding Napster have poisened the well to such an extent that I doubt that we'll ever see an "all music ever created" service again at any price.
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
No that is (Score 3: Funny)
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Slashdot: Yesterdays Register stories, today...
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
the first person to get their grubby hands on the .nap codec and encode any Metallica album.
That would be priceless.
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
RIP Napster, we hardly knew ye.
Before AG gave you the choice of installing Webhancer or not I never had any problems using Adaware to remove webhancer without breaking AG.
Well, that would be anyone who has ever bought an MP3 player. Or used an MP3 encoder. Legally, you gotta pay Fraunhofer/Thompson for every player or encoder.
I'm amazed they got this far with as strict of a licence they have. Encoders like lame or bladenc are in reality, illegal to use unless you have a licence. So if you run Linux and burn MP3's, its likely you are breaking the law.
I'm surprised the Free Software community hasn't rallied more around Ogg Vorbis, given the harsh licencing of MP3.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
How many people will pay to use a proprietary format?
Lets fire all of the slashdots reporters including the foreign correspondents.
Oh wait a minute...
*duh*
- Toby
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
...unless they get a deal with winAmp. Maybe their integrated player will be the ONLY player for music downloaded on Napster. And somehow, it has to be compatible with my hardware player I just spent $300 on.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
None. Or very few. As noted on this thread, bye-bye Napster! Nice knowing ya.
sulli
RTFJ.
No, this definitely will NOT work in your portable. In fact, they will probably make it difficult for your average non-techie to play it anywhere EXCEPT inside the Napster client.
Yes, that means it won't work in your nice new solid state digital audio player. Yes, that also means I'm not interested.
Uh, you don't get it. There isn't going to be ANY way to encode your audio to .nap. All .nap files will be official and come from the Napster servers. You can't just encode your own music and then share it under the new system.
I think I uninstalled that already but thanks for the reminder.
I've worked on more than one project as a consultant based on an unwise business plan. They only ask me to code, not critique. Even bad ideas pay the bills :)
Oh, fellow Americans should read the article (actually, we all should always read the articles). I'm going to try and start working 'gormless' into everyday use for myself.
Of COURSE they think we are stupid......and for good reason.
Some dumb motherfskers out there respond to and PURCHASE FROM SPAM!!!.....
Kiss my shiny metal ass
You are absolutley right! Napster is just the only one that "they" can control....
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Ok, now I should stop pimping switchouse and get on topic, right? Unfortunately no, I forgot the point about 3/4 of the way through. I think it was something about how if Napster deleted a file after someone else downloaded it, it would be legal. There was something more profound and topical to it when I started.
Oh, well. I'll leave this here since the site's actually pretty useful for DVDs. I use it kind of like a rental for anime and stuff they don't stock in my hickville rental place. Maybe I can get some free stuff out of them for this.
Anyhoo... commence karma burn now.
(Score:0 Offtopic) in 5... 4... 3...
Actually either is correct. British versus American usage.
Sorry, but I think you might be mistaken. As far as I can tell, people will be able to encode their own .nap files from mp3, cd, etc. and will be able to share freely. For someone to download from someone else, the downloader will have to pay Napster a fee. If they don't do it this way and instead they do it the way you suggest, then they are the same as emusic and are stupid because emusic drops several million each quarter and will soon be on the internet trash heap. Well, it was clear long ago that Napster was headed to said trash heap as well. What a shame, Napster was pretty nice in its hey-day.
mv enter_sandman.nap enter_sandman.mp3
mpg123 enter_sandman.mp3
Nope doesn't look like it will be too hard to crack this one.
Definetly sounds like a last gasp before immenant death. Anyone want to start a pool on how much longer they will be around?
--
"It's comin' back around again..." -RATM
this comment
Napster is dead, other client have come up; whatever they do will have no effect on P2P anymore.
We all know that, and so does Napster. So why are they building a new system?
To save their own ass; to appease the corporations...The only way Napster can still make some money is by selling itself to a company. Sure the business itself is not going to be profitable, BUT it is obvious that P2P -is- popular, just that corporations need to find a way to manage it to their own benefit.
(In Napster's POV) If Napster can partner with enough big music companies (ie: BMG) and begin the first commercial P2P system, and get a patent on it, they can still turn a profit in a long run via licensing fees (since we also know that as soon as Big Business finds out how to make money from P2P, they will....
'nuff said...
than the number of people who paid for an open format (CD)
and we all know where that went
Maybe I'm missing something incredibly obvious here, but unless they have some goober checking every last file that is coverted to a .nap, what is keeping someone from renaming Metallica .mp3s, converting them to .naps, and sharing them with people they don't know?
.nap files before letting you share them?
And if enough people do this, Napster will not be able to keep up. Regardless of how many people use (or not use, as the case may be) Napster can't possibly check every file that is coming in over their servers. So what's the next step, assuming the Napster is "successful" enough to have a next step? Bit checking every file? 5-day waiting periods while they listen to all your
I'm tempted to sign up for Napster just to see how they do things and how people abuse the system.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
That's what they thought about CSS... all they need is one (deliberately?) poorly designed player and someone will reverse engineer it. And then we'll get to see if Napster has the balls/stupidity to sue the hacker. (Another DeCSS style fiasco could erupt.) Let's at least hope they'll learn from history.
If they did not sue the hacker then .nap would be broken and Napster would go back to its former form - a haven for free music, but this time with Corporate money behind it. Full circle. Perhaps pattern has been repeated in history before. But then the MPAA sued because of DeCSS. Anyone?
If they did sue the hacker, there would be a huge media circus and we'd be stuck in an odd dilemma - to support the hacker would probably make the corporate Napster MORE popular because people could ilegally transcode the .NAP files by downloading the transcoder from gnutella or otherwise. Full circle again. To not support the hacker would be giving in to the corporates, and would probably be like giving a mouse a cookie. Interesting dilemma.
And what do I think? I predict that someone will crack .nap and there will be a court battle... the RIAA will learn the same lessons as the MPAA through the struggles, and ultimately it won't matter because Morpheus, Gnutella, Audiogalaxy and friends will be there.
I see spyware in Napster's future. This is the perfect pay for the music labels to monitor what people download/listen to and create marketing profiles.
Sorry, I should have put more info in my previous post. Here's a link to a story I got off of Google, as well as the article, itself:
BEGIN QUOTE
"The latest version of AudioGalaxy contains webHancer, which is one of the most malicious spyware packages I have ever seen. webHancer is marketed as a "performance analysis" tool. But they are not just analyzing the performance of AG's web server -- webHancer sends information about your browsing habits to webHancer's central server, without your knowledge, in the background. This information, according to their privacy policy, includes: "Dns Lookup Time, Response Time, Network Round Trip Time, Load Time, Connection Delay and Access Speed." But obviously, this does not make any sense without logging the sites you are connected to, especially since the program is bundled with software that is unrelated to the sites it analyzes. Indeed, a short usenet search turns up a post by a webhancer employee, where he writes:
In another posting (he has spammed a lot of groups), he writes:
The program plugs into your TCP/IP socket and is not removed automatically when you uninstall AG. In fact, if you use Windows' Add/Remove, you may no longer be able to use your Internet connection, as several users of webHancer-infected software have reported (example). webHancer is confirmed spyware by Spychecker. If you have recently installed AudioGalaxy, download and run Ad-Aware to remove webHancer. Do NOT attempt to uninstall webHancer yourself, or you may lose your Internet connection.
If you have been a long-time AudioGalaxy user, webHancer may not be installed on your system. AudioGalaxy has silently sneaked in webHancer without changing the version number.
At this point, I must recommend NOT TO USE AUDIOGALAXY, both because of system security and privacy concerns. Please see my rundown on file sharing software for alternatives. And if you find out that any software recommended here contains spyware, and I haven't denoted this here, please alert me immediately. Spyware is becomming a bigger problem than regular Trojan horses and virii. "
END QUOTE
Lots of people are trying to cash in on the mad rush of people trying to get more mp3s. Whether it be Spyware, advertising, whatever. So you have to be careful what you are using.
If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
I think gnapster is pretty much the equivalent of WinMX, though it only connects to one OpenNap server at a time (dunno if it's really p2p or not though, and I can't totally remember since I'm not at home where I can use it). I still think WinMX is easier to use, and for some reason I've gotten more with that than gnapster (though dammit, I'd like to be in Linux more than Windows :/ ). Hey maybe WinMX will run in Wine..hmm..
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"My days are less enjoyable because of people." ~ Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
LimeWire is a cross platform gnutella interface that lets you serch for audio or video or programs or images or documents....they create groups where to look for each type of file speeding up searches dramatically compared to regular gnutella. real slick interface and it works GREAT on Linux.
napster who??
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
Ever heard the term "lost case"? So long and thanks for all the mp3s.
READY.
#
p2p has moved on. Napster was probably the easiest way to get music off the net, and that's probably why it's dead. With great gnutella tools out there like Gnucleus, BMG and Napster can make all the proprietary formats they want. The cat's out of the bag. Napster increased the popularity of file sharing, but Napster does not equal file sharing.
I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem
that'd be great to have it convert all my mp3s into nap format. whee! Quick! Lets pay for service and buy a new harddrive, too!
Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right-- But They Make Me Feel A Whole Lot Better
Isn't it just far too late to expect people to switch to something other than mp3? I know MS would like us all to use WMA, and regardless of any size/quality/etc. comparisons, doesn't the format issue (at this point, anyway) come down what most people already have their music encoded in?
I'm just curious because I see all the initiatives by companies to push other formats and they all seem to just assume people will forget about the mp3 libraries (not to mention tools) they already have! (note - I realize that Napster will "helpfully" convert your files, but really, how many people will want that?)
I just find it annoying, particularly since major hardware manufacturers are starting to make some nice mp3 devices (2nd and 3rd generation mp3-on-cd head units are starting to look good) and now it looks like all that work will be wasted if there is a strong push to abandon mp3.
I just hope that these new formats will be considered "add-ons" and not "replacements" for mp3 in future hardware devices. It's not looking good, though. My only hope is that hardware manufacturers have a more realistic view of what format the consumer's music is in right now!
I'm a little less concerned about listening to music on your computer - as every third or fourth poster here is proud to proclaim - "another format to crack! yipee!" It's a bit harder to do that to hardware device, though
I had the same problem with Mandrake 8.0... Did some hunting and found the solution... If you, like me, use KDE 2.1, restart into GNOME. Run the shell script... The little window will be full size and let you install the program.
I restarted back into KDE, and Lime Wire 1.6 works great! Much faster and smoother than the earlier version.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
"Why are the RIAA still hounding Napster when the game has clearly evolved on to the next level? " Because, as the entire Napster vs. RIAA saga has shown over and over again, the RIAA cannot evolve as quickly as the Net and its users (excepting aolers and other wannabes). The RIAA and its blood-brother the MPAA are all about protecting old ways of doing business in the face of irresistible paradigm shifts. Worldwide, copyright and intellectual property laws will change immensely over the next 10 years, and if the RIAA and MPAA had any sense, they'd try to get ahead of that curve instead of dragging their heels. But, as has already been noted many times here, they have no sense.
Given a reasonably level playing field, who would win a fight between a bear and a shark?
does anyone know how proprietary this format will be? if it is too difficult to encode sound files as .nap's, the few people who still use napster will quickly abandon it.
there are two repercussions if the format is extremely proprietary. 1) only a few players will understand the format, probably only for windows. 2) encoders will not be readily available, so there might not be any music to share.
Bored with your projects?
Try Einsteinium
i don't think this is quite right. part of napster's plan is to include the ability to convert mp3's to nap's. this would be pointless if all the files were napster's and being hosted on napster severs. the mp3's i already have are perfectly playable already. why would i want to convert them if it were not to share them?
no, it will still use the old method of the files being on the users' computers. except now they have a new format (and of course you will have to pay).
now, on the basis that the files will come from the users' computers, will the only method of creating nap's be to convert mp3's? what will this do to the audio quality since conversion between lossy compression methods is usually a bad idea? a great way around this would be to encode directly to nap's. but will this be permitted?
there will also need to be a decoder. will this decoder/player be an integral part of the napster client where only it can play the files? or will others be allowed to use the codec? will windows media player even be allowed to use the codec?
Bored with your projects?
Try Einsteinium
try another jdk
sig sig sputnik
p.s. WinMx doesnt contain any spyware (yipee!)
p.p.s I dont work for winmx (honest guv), I just want that critical mass that nap used to have....Why are the RIAA still hounding Napster when the game has clearly evolved on to the next level?
Napster is dead, long live OpenNap
So, has Napster spoke about this change with it's users? Which users, you say? Well that's a fair question.
--
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
www.webhancer.com It even tells you so during the install. I guess most people click through so fast they don't even realize it. ;)
My IP is 192.168.1.100 Hack it if you want.
I suppose I could have scrolled down and noticed this instead of posting above...
I found that AG won't work if webhancer is removed, so my solution was to change the server urls in whagent.ini to something bogus and prevent it from having net access in the first place with ZoneAlarm.
My IP is 192.168.1.100 Hack it if you want.
How long will it be before Napster sues another company for copyright infringement?
--
PARIS, TEXAS, JULY 17, 2001
Flo's Dress Shop, located on Florence Street, today changed the dress in the window to a blue silk face satin organza with imported satin. The youthful sleeveless gown features an open neckline and fitted shaped waist. The waistline is adorned with a contrasting satin sash which streams down the train. When Flo Sharpenton, the owner of "Flo's Dress Shop," was asked: "Why the change, Flo?" Flo responded, "I felt it was time to have something new."
Who care's about Napster? It is only relevant to those in traditional media circuits who have no understanding of the death of the once popular medium, and do not understand the growth of other MP3 music exchange platforms. In other words, Napster does not matter to nerds, only non-nerds.
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
Will the new format work in the current portable MP3 players, or will it require a new player that can decode the format, or worse still a proprietary player?
Napster is desperate for keeping the big labels off their backs. Too bad they'll have few users if any, now.
Ack! I was gonna use the XOR encryption and hide behind DMCA to jail anybody who tried to crack it!
If you saw the last news about the Adobe crypto technology on the e-book, I don't think this will be a "100% hack-proof" for long.
------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
What is this .NAP? MP3 with crypto?
------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
Also in the news: Amiga Q2 gross profits up 40% to $39.50.
m00.
You can find anything on IRC--legal, illegal, bizarre, cool--just do a /list on DALnet and you'll be set.
--
Aaron J. Shaver
http://aaronshaver.com/
Napster already served it's purpose... that is to open up the eyes of big corporations to the power of on-line file sharing. But I shouldn't say it's done yet, because Napster is about to open up big corporations' eyes to the fact that a brand doesn't mean $#!T w/o some kind of ethic behind it. Nothing may ever live up to the ease of use or accessibility of Napster again, but I think it will come damn close.. For me I'm just glad that Napster has salvaged some personal success for the people involved in creating it. I mean, first they had a huge lawsuit aimed at them, now they are actually getting paid by the music industry, and the great irony is that the industry is bound to lose even more money on Napster than they were before they tried to shut it down.
"Napster's new software will convert your MP3s to its own format before putting them up on the Napster network, giving the company a large degree of control over what goes on in its own network..."
The entire reason that Napster was so succesfull in the first place was that it gave it's users the power. The power to get what they wanted, and share what they wanted free of charge, with no interference. The control was squarely in the hands of its users. How many of its former users are going to want to participate in a system where anything they want to share has to be inspected and converted by a central authority?
All I know is that I won't be among them...
A Multiplayer Strategy Game for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux