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."

Comments

The New Napster...

[issachar]

Having just signed up for the new Napster a couple of days ago, I think they might actually have something worthwhile.

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...

1. The subscription model breaks down unless they've got virtually everything I'd want to listen to. This means they need to have everything. Everything Independent music, foreign music, all of it. If it's just favoured RIAA stuff only or even worse, RIAA stuff without they're best music it'll fail.
2. They've got 1 million songs available in the UK and the US, but only 700,000 in Canada? I asked them about it, and they said it was because of different music licensing in different countries. So... Fix it! That's an excuse not a reason.
3. Having part of library unavailable for streaming/download and available only for purchase as tracks are sold in iTunes. Lame. If I wanted to buy music a la carte, I'd go with iTunes. Apple sells them for less anyway. That goes with point #1. The subscription has to be total or people will continue to use other P2P. And if they're using P2P, they might stop using Napster.
4. Charging extra for letting you listen to your music on a DRM-enabled mp3 player. This should be basic service. It just looks greedy.
5. The searching interface needs improvement. Too much clicking required.
6. The software should not crash. Which it did when I was listening to my first song. It got messed so badly I had to use System Restore to get it back. No problems since then though. It might have had to do with upgrading to Windows Media Player 10. (I see no reason to do that again and confirm my suspicion.
7. I hope they fix the problems. Overall, I like the service.

And history repeats itself

[RAMMS EIN]

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.