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Review of Pay Napster
An Anonymous Coward writes: "A beta tester for the recently released subscription version of Napster has anonymously posted his impressions of the new service. He finds it remarkably similar to the old one, both good '... browsing through a real person's music collection, sending them messages and recommending them new music' and bad '... broken tracks, cancelled transfers and a complete inability to stream or preview tracks.' The service allows 50 tracks a month, but there was little decent content to fill those slots. Messages to other beta testers found mixed reactions among fellow users. Still, the writer holds out some optimism for Napster's chances."
I believe I read somewhere that during Napster's heyday, cd sales were at an all-time high. After they shut Napster down, I believe I read that cd sales went into the toilet.
Coincidence? I think not.
I'll still continue to download various stuffs, and go out and purchase cds when I find stuff I like. Everyone, including the recording industry, would be a lot happier if they realized what a powerful marketing tool these p2p file sharing dealies are.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
We all know that this is will spell the end of Napster. Few will use it to begin with, and, finding the bare library will cancel thier service, slimming the pickens even more.
Who in their right mind is going to pay for it to begin with, with so many other File Sharing apps on the Free market?
Am I Over-Moderating??
The spin will be, that the failure of Napster is due to digital music not being accepted by the public in this form, as its only use is to pirate music.
There is the option, however, to cancel a download mid stream without depleting your download count.
Wasn't there something called "leech zmodem" back in the BBS days? This version of zmodem would abort the download at the very last byte, so as to fool the BBS's upload/download ratio tracking.
I bet something like this will make the rounds when Pay Napster comes online.
Method of processing duck feet
Before everyone dismisses the New and Improved(tm) Napster:
Free web content is only free if your time is worth nothing.
Translation: Sure, you can go get all the free bits you want, but the service here is:
1. Quality
2. Access to what you want, when you want
If those can be provided, then perhaps it is worth a small subscription price. There is an incentive (keeping your subscription current) for Napster to provide value. There is no incentive for some random URL to provide value, because without a purchase there is no value by definition.
However, this only holds true if the value difference remains. If Napster starts providing a substandard service, then it won't be worth the money to subscribe.
But I do think they deserve a chance, espeically if they will be offering smaller or new artists an opportunity to distribute their music as well.
None as good as Napster in its day?!? Have you tried any of the FastTrack clients (Morpheus, Kazaa, Gift)? That you can download any file (not just music) and that there are ~.5 million users when I have used it would have made it a Napster killer, IMO. However, those benefits pale in comparison to the automatic resumption of downloads and (!!) the fact that it swarmcasts when it can find multiple sources. For a broadband user, that makes all the difference in the world. Just find ten or twenty dial-ups to feed you the file.
Napster sucks. It was a great (but simple) idea that was never implemented well until the clones.
Before anyone cries "Sell Out" put yourself in Shawns shoes;
You mean sell your tech to your VC uncle and get subsiquently shafted by him for a few hundred thousand dolars on your million (billion?) dolar idea? Or prance around like an idiot frat boy on MTV, totaly blowing your chance to get the MTV generation to care about copyright law?
Or were you under some sort of impression that Sean Fanning has or ever had any kind of control over napster?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I can clearly see people killing the download on the last few bytes by clamping down the bandwidth and cutting off the few last bytes in order to save their slots...
+++ath0
I bet the .nap files are keyed using some unique id to only work with that user's computer.
cpeterso
try here.
its not in english, but they have some very cool stuff!
If they brought back the old Napster (tons of files, MP3, failed downloads, shitty RIPs, lame client) I'd willing pay for it now.
Put if it was pay only, no one would use it, and if nobody uses it, there's no files, etc etc.
I have to agree with this. I *do* have an emusic account ($10/month, unlimited leeching) and I download when and where I want, using no client other than my web browser, so no-one is mooching off me and using my bandwidth that would otherwise be devoted to Counterstrike. I can't see the advantage of Napster over Emusic at all, given the portability issues (.nap!?), the finite catalog and the bandwidth-mooching issues.
Really, I wonder how this saga is going to turn out. I'm more than happy to pay for content, like I do when I buy books, CDs, DVDs and my Emusic subscription. But I like to feel like I have some ownership over the media and can watch/listen when I want, how I want. That seems fair to me. Not being able to, say, copy music files to my Laptop or an mp3 player is like having a book that won't open when I take it on a plane!
Everyone knows that damage is done to the soul by bad motion pictures. -Pope Pius XI
I'm not sure if it was on leech zmodem or not (I never really used it) but I did have a hacked version of HSLink that took advantage of the fact that the protocol required an ACK to say the whole file had been received, it would ignore this and you would have the file, the BBS would think you didn't and voila...no more ratio problems. :-)
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
There are numerous other file sharing apps out there with an insanely high number of users and files available.
I use:
Kazaa - Fast Multisourced Downloads with amazing search refinement.
Direct Connect - The must be around a PetaByte by now. Good search options, DivX heaven.
AudioGalaxy - Just Select your Track, Select your bitrate, Queue them up and leave it running.
There are probably more and I'm sure you're all familiar with them.
So who in their right mind is ever going to pay for 50 downloads when:
1. The track probably is'nt there.
2. Prorietry file format ?!?!?!
3. Does'nt stream or preview so bad rips really suck.
4. I like to look for Oggs or Flacs.
5. It costs money.
6. Its not free.
7. Its not illegal. (read: Does'nt make you feel naughty)
8. Its legal.
The new Napster will fail.