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Harnessing the Power of P2P, Looking Back
brajesh writes "It has been seven years since Napster, the first widely-used peer-to-peer music sharing service, was released, and it made a major impact on how people, used the Internet. NY Times has an article about Napster and how it quickly grew into an Internet phenomenon - not to mention the music industry's bête noire until it was shut down by the courts four years ago. The article also mentions Shawn Fanning, the creator of Napster and his new venture, along with other efforts like new version of Grokster, Apple's iTunes, trying to cope up with growing concerns of Copyright Violations and corresponding backlash against P2P file-sharing."
What 'repruhsent' is referring to (and what I was about to comment about) is that the article should read: "major impact on how people used the Internet." - The comma that is there right now is not only unnecessary, but actually completely incorrect. Try reading the sentence outloud, pausing at the comma. (Long enough to count to one.) When I read a sentence like that, it makes me retch. Additionally, there is the error at: "Fanning, the creator of Napster", which needs a comma after 'Napster'. It is not currently present. I recommend (additionally) that some of these sentences be shortened, or separated into multiple clauses with the use of a semi-colon. Additionally, I suggest reading "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" for more information (in an amusing medium) on the wonderful tool known as the comma.
Like a sellout, perhaps?
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
The subscription model is good. I still don't trust buying something digital that I can't copy. I also tend to have tastes that change all the time. For $10 per month I get "everything". Even if the DRM is crackable, why would I bother doing it? I'm still going to want to get new music and $10 per month isn't going to break the bank.
Napster downloads fast and it's simple. Limewire and the like are cheaper, but they're slightly more of a hassle and my time is worth something to me.
It does have a few problems though...
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It's funny how history repeats itself here.
Before Napster, people downloaded music from websites, and usually paid for it.
Then Napster came, and it was a revolution. Suddenly, downloading music got big. Unfortunately, the widespread illegal practices on the network were used to force Napster to shut down.
Many people have tried to set up services similar to Napster in spirit. Virtually all of these get attacked by the **AA sooner or later, usually resulting in them shutting down. That's the short cycle.
In the meantime, many people have gone back to downloading music from websites. That's the long cycle.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
That's not totally true -- Napster was quite open about their plans to blackmail the RIAA into paying them to go legit. Instead the record companies just sued them into the ground and took their trademark.
Actually, there Napster and several other internet music companies (myplay, musicbank etc etc) all tried working with the labels and were universally stonewalled. The napster case was actually the catalyst that got the labels talking with the digital music companies, but by that time most of the 'legal' companies were in bad shape financially and folded. had built all the technology and sales models we see in the market years before the Itunes music store appeared and won all sorts of awards for innovation.
I plan on continuing to use p2p as a method of distributing online content created by ....myself. I run a low-power website. If there is only one person trying to get content, then fine, ftp or http are fine. If there are more, (and at times more can mean tens of millions more), then neither my site, nor my ISP cannot handle the load. I created the content. I licenced it, and I get to distribute it if I want to. Bittorrent is an *OUTSTANDING* way for individuals to push content to the masses. The only people who don't want it, are those who own traditional means of content distribution and have a very very hard time sharing power with others. Bittorrent in itself isn't illegal. The content I put on it isn't illegal. I drive my car safely, others speed (I've seen them). I don't want you to take away my car because some people speed, and I don't want you to take away my Bittorrent because other people steal. Next thing you will try to take away someones gun because some people can use it to steal.