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Napster Alternatives Coming Strong

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the who's-surprised-by-that dept.

viking099 writes "File swapping programs such as Morpheus, Grokster, and Kazaa (all based on the same software from FastTrak) have grown over 480% in the past 4 months, and are set to break the 1.57 million concurrent connection record that Napster set." So who exactly is surprised by this?

1 of 441 comments (clear)

  1. Re:GPL and Napster-like things by uchian · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Because the GPL is giving extras rights to the people who use the software, and violating the GPL is removing these rights.

    That's the easy one. Now for the controversial one, cos it's technically stealing, but most people don't see it that way, and there's lot's of good reasons why.

    Downloading music off the internet is quite often a very easy way to find out whether or not you like a band, or whether or not the latest Jamiroquai album is worth buying (my verdict - yes it is). And then there's those times when perhaps you like ONE song on an album, and it was never released as a single. Not many people are going to buy the album for one song. Download it off the internet? Sure they will.

    If someone is that keen on pirating songs anyway, they normally find a copy of the CD from somewhere (mates, library, whatever) and rip the songs from there, because it doesn't take so long - stopping services like Napster won't halt piracy much.

    Again, most people who use Napster I guess are the same kind who visit Warez sites. They might happen to have several gigs worth of downloaded stuff which they would have NEVER bought, but hey, they don't actually use it for anything worthwile either so who cares?

    And that's the thing, if you really like a particular band, then you will buy their stuff. I love reading Terry Pratchett, so I buy all of the books. I don't have enough money to buy the Hardback editions, so I wait for paperback. I love listening to Jamiroquai, so I go out and buy their albums. I'm not a fan of Robert Palmer, but I liked Addicted to love, so I downloaded it. I don't like it enough to go out and buy it though, and I don't listen to it enough to warrant buying it either. So Robert Palmers not lost anything (I wouldn't have bought it anyway), I've gained a bit because I can listen to it occasionally.

    But hey, maybe I'll start downloading and listening to some of his other stuff, and maybe I'll like it. Then I'd go out and buy the album, if for no other reason than to rip it to ogg vorbis cleanly at 160bps :-)

    Have I done this in the past? Yes, I bought the Bloodhound Gand single "The Bad Touch" after finding it on Napster.

    And then there are all those songs on Napster which you can't find in the shops easily, such as that Irish Drinking Song, "Bugger Off" (If I see an album in the shops with that on, I'd buy it too :-)

    But hey, that's just why I download stuff. Perhaps other people have more compelly reasons.