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Preview the New Napster
*ZiggyP0P* writes "Napster has finally released a preview/teaser of their new business model. Seems kind of sad that so much work will be done on something that noone will use. Quite interesting the part about their own file format..."
Is there a reason why the link to Napster is going through fark.com?? They don't appear to have anything to do with Napster...
Artists Get Paid.
...yet another music file format. Why are they bothering?
Absurdity: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce
That "nobody" will use the new service is a bit of a misstatement; I think that there will be a dedicated, but small user base - certainly, nothing like the huge usage Napster once had, but if they are able to create a subscription model that has a good enough balance between Cost/Hassle and Product that Joe User will choose it over messing about with AudioGalaxy, there will certainly be a user base.
Expect a PR campaign simultaneous to the release painting those who use Napster2 as hip, aware people while those who use others as music pirates.
The PR campaign won't be as scary as the legislative offensive launched to outlaw music trading apps without DRM... Napster and the industry will be on the same side.
In other words, this isn't the end of Napster, not by a long shot. And I suspect that, of all the fee-based services, the one from Napster will be more forgiving than the one that MS puts out.
" Why should I pay when I can get it for free somewhere else?
You mean aside from the fact that Napster is the coolest?
Seriously, we know that there will always be a lot of alternatives. Ultimately, the choice will be yours, but we feel that file sharing communities that pay copyright holders and provide simple, useful tools to help you do what you want with your digital music collection are going to prevail. We feel strongly that the value you receive from Napster will make the fee seem insignificant.
yes, the alternatives we've grown the love over the last 6 months just don't compare the the 'quality' that we could get with the satisfaction of making the RIAA much richer than it already is.
Runnin' On Empty
It will fail for entirely different reasons. Primary amongst them is the fact that plain old mp3 files are all people really want. The hardware players people own play mp3s, the files they already have are mp3s, and and no one likes restrictions on copying their files.
Not that charging a monthly fee won't work against them, it will, but there are still a number of people who would gladly have paid a monthly fee for what napster WAS. What it has/will become is something no one wanted or asked for napster to make.
And the final problem is that by now a solid napster replacement in the form of Morpheus/Kazaa/grokster has come out. Napster waited way too long. They will always have a place in history, but they will never have a place in the future.
Two words: .NAP files.
Why should I spend money to get music as files that won't play on my Nomad or Archos Jukebox?
I'm all for giving the artists a cut of the subscription, or on a per-download basis, or what have you, but if it's in this "secure" format then it becomes worthless to me.
- It costs money.
- It's not MP3.
- It's MP3, but with copy protection wrappers.
- You can only download a certain number of tracks per month.
And last, but not least, from the "new FAQ": "Why should I pay when I can get it for free somewhere else?", the answer is "You mean aside from the fact that Napster is the coolest?"After I wiped the coffee off my keyboard, I kept reading, and saw "file sharing communities that pay copyright holders and provide simple, useful tools to help you do what you want with your digital music collection are going to prevail."
Well, sure, but the last time I checked, paying for the privilege of being Hilary Rosen's bitch and copy-crippling my MP3s qualified as "what I want to do with my music collection".
I propose that for 2002, all articles concerning RIAA-endorsed music subscription services go under "It's funny. Laugh".
How much you want to bet the first person that cracks this secure format lands a 5 year jail sentence and $500,000 to napster?
Maybe that's their business model? A couple of people being caught for DMCA violations, and they've done better than any other DotCom so far. The bastards...it's almost TOO clever...
Check out my sysadmin blog!
In other words: we've been legally required to implement a security layer on most MP3 files. But it's just a code wrapper, and if you're persistent enough, you can strip it right back off. Just don't mention our name on your "Downloads" page.
Actually, the "Artists Make Money" section was somewhat interesting.
If I can put my music/audio on Napster and then get paid whenever it changes hands, that might be interesting.
MP3.com used to have the "Pay for play" system where artists could get money each time their music was played or downloaded through the site.
At first that system was awesome - it was free for artists AND the listeners! But then MP3.com got bought out and you had to pay $20/month to be part of the program and they started adding all these things which made it really complex. So I quit that.
But if registering my stuff with Napster can get me cash, I'm interested.
There might be some cost to the artist (or maybe it'll be free in the beginning) but it could be cool.
Macintosh humor! MacComedy.com
It doesn't look like the artists will be paid (from the FAQ):
How is Napster going to stay legal? Will you filter out certain songs, like before?
All the music available through Napster will be legally licensed for sharing in the Napster community. When you make music available for sharing, our system will check to make sure it's licensed to Napster. We're busy getting licenses to music from copyright holders ranging from major to independent labels, so there'll be a lot of great music when we launch -- and we'll continue adding to that body of music.
(Emphasis mine)
So, once again, it looks like both the artists and the users are being screwed.
This solution Napster will be offering would be more palatable in my view if we knew the money was going DIRECTLY to the artists, rather than via the "label"...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
That is what Napster will become if the new incarnation is widely adopted.
.nap files, making Napster the number one controller of digital rights on the planet.
.nap files so that compliance is 100% in that arena.
.nap DRM schema so that the other sharing services can be brought into line.
It will act like a massive distributed file converter, changing billions of MP3 files into
SONY made a small attempt at this with thier proprietary format and portable player that would not play MP3s. It came with software to convert your MP3s to thier format. It bombed.
The new Napster a brilliant idea on paper; use everyones bandwidth and existing mp3s to create a billion file pool of locked music upon which royalties must be paid, in a fully automated system.
The record companies save having to host and convert thier catalogues, and have a ready made system for effortlessly controlling billions of files.
Radio stations will then be compelled to play from
Next of course, they will attempt to legislate that all other formats comply with the
If we are not careful its "Bye Bye" clean Ogg Vorbis, and any other tool that helps you use and share music the way that you used to.
Lets see who signs up for it. What a story.
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
One thing I don't understand: why keep harping about "sharing?" As I read this -- the new Napster FAQ -- you no longer share music, right?
You simply connect to Napster, Inc and grab your limited tracks? So this is essentially a crippled version of the "jukebox in the sky" model that everyone has been talking about but no one can implement?
I mean, this is like MP3.com back before they got bitch-slapped by the RIAA, right? When you stored your music in a "locker" and could access it anywhere? (Which remains an interesting idea, although I have no idea how it works now on MP3.com. Last time I checked, all but two of my songs were "locked down" and a pop-up let me know that MP3.com were "working diligently" to restore the music in my locker. Sorta like the same lame rhetoric that Napster has: "We're working as fast as we can to get you MP3s to play on your MP3 player.")
Now, okay, maybe someone can explain this to me. I don't mean this to be a troll or flamebait. I'm actually curious about this: why in the world would I *pay* Napster simply to get a crippled version of (take your pick) Morpheus?
Granted, it's nice to see that artists are going to get paid. But -- again -- maybe I'm missing something here -- but if the RIAA four years had foresight enough to deal with the MP3 onslaught in a shrewd, savvy way, we'd (a) have the great big jukebox in the sky at this point and (b) the artists (at this point) *would* be getting paid.
So by supporting Napster -- or MusicNet or PressPlay -- what I'm essentially doing is two things: (1) paying protection so as not to get fingered by the RIAA and (2) supporting the RIAA in their quest to *litigate* technology out of the marketplace.
This new Napster is "approved" technology where the old technologies are maverick technologies, unapproved, and therefore illegal?
I get the sense that Napster will become some sort of litmus test for the RIAA. It's going to be one of the incubators (MusicNet and PressPlay being the others) to see how profit can be derived from on-line music.
And again, I got no problem with giving artists their fair-share, but I'm very uncomfortable with the RIAA being in the middle.
What I'd like to see is a Napster that takes the RIAA out of the equation. I'd like to be able to give Bob Dylan or whomever my five cent listening fee and know that it's going into Dylan's pockets. I don't want some fat-cat exec skimming 4.5 cents from that nickel in order to support his Lexus habit or the fact that he or she has to pay rent on his overbig house in the Hamptons.
Napster? PressPlay? Forget it.
The general public knows the word "Napster", and that name alone could carry it to success. Yeah, the FastTrack network has gotten huge, and Napster hasn't even been up for a long time, but Napster still has some big name recognition with Joe Public.
I mean, can't anyone think of other cases where people chose an expensive product over a free one? I can think of one or two off the top of my head.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
I am on the Napster team that created this new Digital Rights Managment file format.
.NAP format is hereby implemented using ROT-14.
We did extensive research and analysis on all of the available encryptions schemes. We even considered rolling our own. Based on the fact that all client programs would be required to have the decryption algorythm, and at some point the content must be presented to the user, we concluded that security rested entirely within the DMCA.
After reaching this conclusion, we did what any good programmer would have done. We decided not to waste time writing redundant code. We reused an available package. At the insistance of the lawyers, we spent a few minutes customizing the package to be incompatible with the original. The
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I just bought a new computer and I can't find my files. What happened to them?
I always wondered when using Napster, "What group of people used this service?" Then I remember, during it's peak usage, everyone. I think that's why Napster was so great. It gave me something about computers to which my non-geek friends could relate. I remember knowing people who bought computers and subscribed to the internet because of Napster.
On a side note, the recent recession must be realated to Napster use in some way to the recent economic downturn.
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
I should have expected the Slashdot Socialist Brigade to rise yet again.
This is the best argument you guys can come up with? "It's not the same as MP3, and besides, I can steal it anyway, so why should I pay? Anyway, only the fat cats at the record companies would benefit. If I could pay the artists directly, then yeah, maybe."
Why stop there? Why shouldn't you pay programmers directly for software instead of their employers? When I buy a gallon of milk, shouldn't the money go directly to the dairy farmer instead of the grocery store? [ PETA version: it goes to the cow. ] And of course every penny of that $25K Explorer should go to the auto workers that built it.
It's very simple, folks. These artists chose to enter into an agreement that stated they gave up the right to market their work. That's the way business works - sometimes you make a good deal, sometimes you don't.
I wish folks would stop rationalizing theft in the name of some distorted notion of "freedom".