Slashdot Mirror
Napster Tries Again
intheory writes "As it states on the site, The Cat is Almost Back. Napster, following a singificant delay, beleagured by legal and ethical rhetoric, reappears as a pay-to-play service. With some similarities to Apple's iTunes, will Napster regain its place as the premiere music distribution service? Additionally, the man behind the magic, Shawn Fanning, receives a thoughtful write up." I'm pretty wary of the new Napster, as the only thing it seems to share with its predecessor is the name.
Here's what I got whilest using my TiBook:
We're sorry, Napster is not currently compatible with your operating system.
Napster is currently compatible with Windows XP/2000. Windows 95, Windows NT and the Mac OS are not supported at this time.
If you are planning on using Napster on this computer, the service will not be compatible and you should discontinue registration. If you will use Napster on a different computer, with a compatible operating system, please continue.
What and odd thing to say. They also don't even mention Windows 98, which in all the stats pages I've seen, is currently between XP and 2000 in popularity. Well, good luck to them.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
Roxio bought PressPlay and Napster's "brand". Then they re-launch PressPlay with the Napster's name.
There ya go. It's just PressPlay with a different face and a different owner. Same tech team.
You'll never shut down the REAL Napster!!!
"I planned within my means and got a fixed rate mortgage, so where's MY bailout?" -cafepress
Napster is dead, they surrendered to the RIAA and turned coat. The service is now strictly DRM, and is nothing more than the fulfillment of a record exec's wet dream. Refuse to fulfill the fantasy of the RIAA, boycott Napster. Nothing more to say here.
Slashdot needs a section for press releases instead of publishing them as actual news/story articles.
for old times sake, maybe a nice Metallica ditty:
MASTER! MASTER!
Master of "puppets" pulling strings..
I think you know where I'm going with this.
Now that we have to pay for napster, it's not that cool anymore.
But now that I'm out of college, I'm not that cool anymore either.
Ive said it before and ill say it again, cdbaby.com kicks ass. They let you listen to 2 minutes of 5-7 songs off an album to see if you like it, if you do buy it, if not go on to the next one! All their albums are reviewed by the editors to give you description of what the music is like. Plus, after your first purchase, they send you a free cd with each purchase thereafter (usually a mix cd which is pretty good.)
Disclaimer: all though this read like an ad, its not. Im just a satisfied customer.
This is a great alternative to emusic and such pay for play setups where you waste a quota trying to find music you like.
Napster was replaced with better systems a long time ago. Same name, different cat.
The real question is, does the new napster offer advantages over competing services, such as iTunes, and if they do, what are they? Anybody in the know here? Is it easy to preview content without paying for it? Do the downloads include DRM? Watermarking? How does this new Napster work, and why should we all be rushing to sign up?
MakePassword.com Mp3 Blog
Here's what I got whilest using my TiBook
Please don't complain about lack of the new Napster on Mac OS X because 1. remember that it took a while for Napster to make a Mac client for its old network, and 2. as a TiBook owner, you're in on the beta test of iTunes Music Store, which seems equivalent to what the new Napster offers ($1 singles, $10 albums).
They also don't even mention Windows 98
Because of its (lack of a) security model, Microsoft's Windows 9x operating systems aren't that great for much other than running legacy DOS apps.
Will I retire or break 10K?
They have zero information on what kinds of files will be available and what quality they will be. I suppose the 5 tracks for free will discourage most people from continuing the service. Only thing that would worry me is that they already have your credit card number.
That's exactly what I was expecting when I signed up (Linux/Firebird)... but everything went through just fine.
As far as the service... Well, I'll probably end up getting the 5 free tracks on a friend's box (since I don't have Windows) and then never using it again--barring the release of a Linux client. *laughs*
I figured it's worth a try just to find out how it works and what restrictions they have, then if the topic ever comes up I can speak from experience.
Check out the Napster Animations. They're pretty funny =)
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
Free > Cheap??? No way, surely Free Cheap.
And that is what matters. They charge for the equivilant of a 128kbps MP3 but offer it in DRM Windows Media format.
Sure, you can charge for a product if it is better quality than a free product (e.g., charge for a 320kbps MP3 when these are damn hard to get hold of on Kazaa etc) or offers better availability (the benefit of Kazaa and AudioGalaxy were that the had VERY rare tracks that were not available in the shops.
But the new Napster looks set to offer a mediocre crippled file format of a limited availability of songs that can be got for free, at a better quality level, for free on Kazaa, WinMX et all.
$9.95 for an album of 128kbps DRM WM files??? No way. The make a few pennsies, but only from competition to iTunes not from converting sustomers. The Napster brand counts for nothing.
--
FreeNET user? Comfortable with the adverse selection?
Well, I think all of these online music pay-download services will, at best, receive only limited success - UNLESS/UNTIL they start offering more exclusive content.
If you think about it, people like receiving something tangible for their money. If you buy a piece of software or a music album in the store, you get a phyical piece of media you can take home and put on a shelf. Not only that, but it typically has some printed material too (instructions in the case of software, or liner notes and photos for music).
People will pay for "instantly downloadable upon receipt of payment" type software because it's typically stuff you can't buy the traditional way. (At best, they offer to mail you a copy for a few dollars more, and then you have to wait weeks to receive it.)
With music, people figure it's just as easy to run down to the local store and pick up the new CD as it is to sit there, waiting through an online download - and then, possibly have to use one of your own blank CDRs to burn it onto.
If artists started releasing new material ONLY on these services, then there would be much more incentive to use them.
will Napster regain its place as the premiere music distribution service?
No.
Any more brain-busters?
Not necessarily. In places like Taiwan, piracy used to be so rampant that it was hard to buy legit CDs. Now, however, companies have started putting out CDs which, while not as cheap as the pirated versions, are of a reasonable price; and this is causing piracy to lower significantly.
Bít, zabít, jen proto, ze su liska!
I've been a happy subscriber to pressplay for the last several months and have mixed feelings about it changing its name to napster due to the obviously negative impression that many (eg. company IT people) have of that name.
.99 is not that bad considering that you pay 15 bucks for a cd on which you like 4 songs. Plus, you can rip the cd that you burn those songs to to mp3 and use on any device you want. That said, I haven't bought that much music from them.
Nonetheless, its a great service for the most part:
1. I can download all the music I want for one flat fee of 10 bucks a month. I can only play it on the computer I downloaded it to, but thats the only computer (at home) I listen to music on.
2. I can stream music at work... this means I can go group an artist or genre or group of songs into a playlist and have it streamed to my while I work. I can also listen to their radio stations.
3. Purchasing music -
Downsides:
1. Music selection - lots of good music, but some artists that I like are missing.
2. Pay - its taken me a bit of time to get used to the idea of paying something for music (albeit just 10 bucks a month)
Alot of posts here have said that this is some phoney service thats doomed to fail - a wannabe iTunes. I think that many more features are available than with iTunes and I urge you to give it a shot... even just the free trial if its available when they startup.
On a similar note why design a site that is platform specific? There is simply no reason why a music delivery website (thats what all these services are anyway) needs to be designed for a particular platform. I guess the current excuse is media player integration or DRM format capabilities.
That just leads to the question why use DRM? I realize licensing negotiation in the main reason why, but people who request DRM don't understand the nature of propagation on P2P networks. Once a file is seeded from one source, that is it! The cat is out of the bag. DRM is simply ineffective at prohibiting sharing of files on P2P networks and as seen from the many copy protected CD's, its like putting a big flashing sign on the packaging saying "Crack Me, Trade Me, Please!"
There ya go. It's just PressPlay with a different face and a different owner.
Well, not quite. This Press release states that pressplay was the "foundation" for Napster, but from the information on their site, it sounds like Napster has a bunch more features, a different pricing structure, and a larger catalog of music. So yeah, it's from the same company as pressplay, and it shares some of the same software, but it's hardly "PressPlay with the Napster's name."
I produce electronic music and write little games. Have a look.
iTunes did not die out. It is exceeding all expectations. They recently announced 10 million downloads in 4 months http://pub143.ezboard.com/fthemagazinenfafrm11.sho wMessage?topicID=809.topic. That's extraordinary, any way you measure it. Sure, it's less than the *really* incredible rates they started with, but it is still far in excess of all the other sites combined.
After reading this story, I thought I would go check out BuyMusic.com and see if anything has changed. Low and behold on the front page is a banner advertising the Metallica album. Funny that they were one of the most vocal bands against P2P and Napster in particular.
I find it quite ironic that they are now giving in and have St. Anger available on BuyMusic.com (nevermind that the album completely blows but that discussion is for another day). I wonder if they will be on the Napster? Since both sites use the draconian DRM so well implemented in WMA, this should make them happy. Now that can sell a few copies of songs off that crappy album and increase their profits from $10 gazillion to $10 gazillion plus a few bucks.
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
Additionally, the man behind the magic, Shawn Fanning, receives a thoughtful write up.
/. editors call his bluff (yeah, sure...)
Um... Fanning is not mentioned at all in the linked article. Am I missing something, or was the submitter so pressed for time that he merely guessed about the content of the story?
Or maybe it was an attempt to let the
-ben
myselfmusic
It did have an initial surge, but has been averaging about 500k songs a week. Any guess how much OTHER music services are selling a week?
I have to think that anything actually making money, and lots of it, for the owner is pretty far from being "dead".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you are thinking of signing up make sure you read the terms and conditions first. It limits what you can do with the songs quite a bit. Some highlights are:
--You may burn each Purchased Track to a CD up to five times as part of any particular playlist of songs. A "playlist" is a discrete group of Purchased Tracks that are arranged together in a particular order. Once you have burned a Purchased Track to a CD, you agree not to copy, distribute, or transfer the track from that CD to any other media or device. --
and
---If you are using the version of the Service that is accessible from Microsoft Corporation's Windows Media Player 9 Series, you will only be able to burn or transfer Purchased Tracks using the Windows Media Player. In addition, if you are using the version of the Service that runs in Microsoft Corporation's Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004, certain features that are available in the Service will not be available in the "distance viewing" experience. --
also --You may copy each Download to up to two additional personal computers that you own (i.e. a total of 3 copies). You may not share Downloads with anyone else. Napster automatically renews your rights to all of your Downloads at the beginning of each Subscription Month (as defined below) so long as your subscription remains current. This means that in order to play any Download after the end of a Subscription Month, you must log on to the Service so that Napster can renew your rights for those Tracks. The Client will count the number of times that you play a Download, including while you are offline, for royalty accounting and analysis purposes. --
I guess that's what all that Digial Right's Management stuff is in WiMP 9.
Anyone know what "distance viewing" is?
Shawn Fanning is an idiot. This is not a troll. He releases a PTP system that is so inherently unthought out and stupidly illegal and try to make a go of it. He wrote a program in VB that was what it was because he couldn't implement anything more complex. Sure, some of the beauty of Napster was its simplicity. But this is also the reason we are in a jam with PTP systems like we are today. Without Napster we would not have the RIAA court cases. We would have Gnutella systems, Bit Torrent etc free from lawyers and everyone would be happy.
Napster was a lowest common denominator PTP system. It stole MP3's. Many people thought of simple systems like this that the masses could use but most knew better than to damage PTP credibility before this. Writing a Napster program in VB would take a few days at best. Not that his idea wasn't what counts, it is and simple is usually better. But in his case there was no way around it. Napster was made to steal music. At least with Hotline and similar technologies you could say it had other purposes and in some cases make other purposes for it.
Napster has caused so many problems with legit PTP systems. My problem with it was it was so flagrant. It was a dumb mans PTP system and it brought attention to other areas that otherwise didn't want it.
Now, I probably sound like I am hating on Napster because now it's harder for me to steal things. Well, it's not harder for to steal things so you can rule that out. But, I know systems are being monitored closely now and the general public knows what a PTP system is, well sort of. I download some music I don't own. I use free software so I don't need to pirate that. But now I can get a huge fine if I D/L a song from the wrong person. I blame Napster for this. Not for me D/Ling things, but for being so stupid, flagrant and blatantly illegal about it they fucked it up for everyone.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
I get my free Disney material at the public library. Advantages of the library vs. other methods:
You may be surprised at the selection offered by your public library. I sure was.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I don't understand what all of this hullaballoo about "legal" music vending methods is.
I mean, it is nice that we can now download music at the behest of our checking (or credit card) accounts. On the other hand, the majority of consumers are still in the mindset of "try before you buy." For ten bucks an album, I want some damn liner notes. Do any of these services provide them online? I don't think they do.
I strongly feel that 10.00 for a bunch of digital bytes, and without any liner notes is an astrociously high price. The company's only real expense for the distribution is the bandwidth. They should adjust the prices accordingly. Now, I do understand that the labels get a cut of the proceeds, I really think they need to revise how big of a cut they get for something that is not physical...especially if they want to be on top of the game.
Again, I know I am kind of ranting here, but I think that all of these music-service startups is like a bad dream. It reminds me of the "DotCom" bubble in the sense that only the services that provide THE BEST experience will survive. Read: Apple.
Napster's old reputation precedes its new offering. So, with that kind of stigma, most people that want to legally get music probably won't want to be associated with a name that has had a bad reputation in the past.
Napster has virtually NO brand name value with the demographic that counts, kids aged 15-25.
As an aside, the same kids knew Nirvana, but had no idea who Alice In Chains or Soundgarten were, and these were headbanging Korn/Limp Bizkit dudes. Sad... Actually, they didn't know who the President of the USA was, or the Prime Minister of Canada, so take heart, the cuts in education are working wonders.