Napster Being Shut Down

helix2301 writes "Napster was one of the earliest and most popular P2P music-sharing services. After a long legal battle that saw Napster slowly gutted in the face of infringement lawsuits, it was reinvented as a legitimate music download service. The resurrected Napster is now being shut down. Rhapsody has completed its purchase of Napster and will be absorbing its subscribers and assets."

Comments

Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[elrous0]

The music industry had to be dragged kicking, clawing, and screaming into the 21st century. If it weren't for Napster and iTunes we'd all still be driving down to the record store to buy $15 CD's, just to get the one or two songs you actually want and the 10 other songs that are complete filler. It's sad that Napster had to be a sacrifice on the road to the industry finally waking up and realizing that people actually want digital music and they want it at a reasonable per-song price--that we'd had enough of getting gouged under the old LP/CD system.

Of course, they're still grumbling about it--and many of them still want to slap DRM on their music. But at least Napster (and later Kazaa) were there to scare the industry and make them realize that people want to download digital music, and iTunes was there to show them that, yes, you can still make money off it (but we're not buying your overpriced albums anymore for one song).

Of course, I'm sure the arrogant stoner at my local record store hates this, as he no longer gets to snort at my record choices and tell me about how *HIS* taste is so much more hip than mine.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

Except now you're paying $15 for a digital copy, and $10 for the CD, or $1.99 for that "just one track".

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[jaymz666]

What's a local record store?
Even without download services, sites like AMazon, CDNow, Music Boulevard and their ilk were eating away at the local record store business.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[masternerdguy]

If your smart you grab the CD and rip it, then store the CD in a safe place. You save money and have no DRM.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

If you only want to hear 2 out of 12 songs on an album then you must listen to some shitty bands.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[elrous0]

I'm not sure where the arrogant stoner went after the local record store closed. But if I had to guess, I would imagine he's in his Mom's basement right now listening to a post-pre-punk ska glam fusion band on vinyl and longing for the days when he could spend all day telling customers how much better his tastes were than theirs.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

What artists are you listening to that can only produce 1-2 songs per album that you'd actually want to purchase?

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[jaymz666]

And a backup! Oh, and liner notes and pretty pictures.
Try selling a used download at the local Half Price Books & Music.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[masternerdguy]

Probably nickelback. They're good as mass production.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[DogDude]

Speak for yourself. Instead of buying overpriced, poor quality, DRM'ed music, I DO go to my local CD store, buy $10-$15 CD's, rip them for my own use, AND I contribute to my local economy.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[ackthpt]

Except now you're paying $15 for a digital copy, and $10 for the CD, or $1.99 for that "just one track".

I am completely fine with $1.99 for one track, if the rest of the album isn't of any interest. I'm an old Album Rock dude, but will be among the first to recognize how many one/two hit wonders there have been where I won't want the whole CD.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[MightyMartian]

Yeah, they just record twelve versions of the same song for each album. I swear that I cannot tell the difference between any Nickelback song. It's like if the Beatles only recorded dozens of variations of She Loves You.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[elrous0]

Well, there are bands whose albums you buy and then there are bands who make one or two decent songs and then sleepwalk through the rest of the recording sessions. At least now I have an option to treat them differently.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you bought a "music disc" from Sony.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[elrous0]

Anything my girlfriend likes.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider how many albums have 12 songs and only one of them is ever aired on the radio. Sometimes that one is a typical indicator of the content of the album, often it's the only track most people can listen to more than once without wanting to kill someone. After realizing that, consider how bad the songs on the radio are that don't inspire you to consider looking for tha album.

Sure there's good music, and good musicians, but there's a whole lot of drek that is much more advertised.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[elrous0]

AND I contribute to my local economy.

Buying from my local record store was only helping keep the local weed dealer in business. But to each his own.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Pope]

If it weren't for Napster and iTunes we'd all still be driving down to the record store to buy $15 CD's, just to get the one or two songs you actually want and the 10 other songs that are complete filler..

They really shot themselves in the foot with the whole CD single thing, that was gouging pure and simple. I still have an old '45 from 1980 with the original price tag still on it: CAN$1.49. That was when LPs were 40 minutes or less with 8 songs, going for around CAN$9.99.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, god forbid you should ever go outside and interact with other actual humans...

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[icebraining]

If you're smart you download that rip and buy some merchandising from the artist. You save money, have no DRM, probably pay more to the artist and get some nice t-shirt or similar besides the music.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[rednip]

I'm sure the arrogant stoner at my local record store hates this, as he no longer gets to snort at my record choices and tell me about how *HIS* taste is so much more hip than mine.

When in 'reality' we know that your taste is so much more hip than anyones. I'll bet that that they see you growl at the their suggestions seemingly out of habit.

However, were you even alive in the days when there really was a record store culture? It wasn't the internet that killed off the independent record store, but the chain retailer. Well that and CDs, because as you didn't have to buy your tenth copy of 'Dark Side of the Moon' once it couldn't as easily wear out.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[mat catastrophe]

If you were buying albums with 1 good song for every 5 bad ones, then yes, the local store's stoner's taste is probably better than yours.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't seem to understand the economics of dealing weed. I used to make several hundred dollars per day just dealing to friends; selling records would have been a pain in the ass and cut into my profit margin.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[elrous0]

Hey, I'll have you know I've hiked every mountain in Skyrim.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[aussiedood]

... to buy $15 CD's, just to get the one or two songs you actually want and the 10 other songs that are complete filler...

I always preferred buying the whole album and still do. But if you bought a whole CD for one song, more fool you. There were these things called singles, they've been around since music became commercialized. I don't get why people perpetuate the myth that individual song purchase was bought about by the digital age!

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[lennier1]

Makes me miss the old days where you'd use a modified driver for your disc drive to gain direct access to the tracks (copy them straight as WAV files).

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[elrous0]

When in 'reality' we know that your taste is so much more hip than anyones.

I listen to bands so niche that even they haven't heard their music.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[CmdrPony]

Should we do the same with DRM software?

If we go that route, then I could take Ubuntu and wrap it up in proprietary code. After that I donate to some Linux programmers who worked on some small part of it ("but Canonical just steals from the poor coders!") and it's justified!

Of course we can forget about the other people who worked on Ubuntu, just like we can forget about the other people who made that artists album happen.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

The music industry had to be dragged kicking, clawing, and screaming into the 21st century. If it weren't for Napster and iTunes we'd all still be driving down to the record store to buy $15 CD's, just to get the one or two songs you actually want and the 10 other songs that are complete filler. It's sad that Napster had to be a sacrifice on the road to the industry finally waking up and realizing that people actually want digital music and they want it at a reasonable per-song price--that we'd had enough of getting gouged under the old LP/CD system.

I wouldn't really single out Napster. It was simply the biggest widely known distribution channel on the internet, and it was quite frankly, utter crap. Unreliable and a bad idea as such for any file transmission, including that of illegal content. They got too big and got burned at the stake.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

It's great having so many talented new bands releasing hip, exciting music and trying to outdo each other, just like in the old days.

Oh, they aren't? Well, at least we get to own copies of the older stuff at a very reasonable price.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

What's a local record store?

It is something to do with Brian Wilson. I guess it is where you can get a Double XL Chalupa.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[ackthpt]

Consider how many albums have 12 songs and only one of them is ever aired on the radio. Sometimes that one is a typical indicator of the content of the album, often it's the only track most people can listen to more than once without wanting to kill someone. After realizing that, consider how bad the songs on the radio are that don't inspire you to consider looking for tha album.

Sure there's good music, and good musicians, but there's a whole lot of drek that is much more advertised.

One great thing about last.fm listen to see if you like something, before deciding upon album or only a few songs. This is rather how it was back in the old days of records stores, where you could actually listen to tracks to decide if you warranted the album worth buying. May have one track, which was so exceptional (beyond just pop appeal) warranting purchase of the album. May have several tracks which are very good warranting purchase of the album.

I'm not really a fan of Amazon's approach to listen to a little sample, only useful for confirming it is the tune I'm looking for or particular mix. Most of the rather large music collection I have was purchased upon faith that the whole CD/album was worth getting. Quite often it has been so. There are tunes I really like that may be very obscure to those who only follow Top-40 on radio. I'm probably one of the few you will hear on the freeway in Summer with his windows down and Louis Jordan cranked way up, the whole CD rather than just one tune.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

I miss audiogalaxy. You could search FTP sites so you could find more than just mp3s

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[SCHecklerX]

I see nothing wrong with having to still buy CDs. The prices of them were the problem. Sell a CD for $5 or less, and people would have bought them. The tools to rip your own collection then would have evolved to be easier/faster/better. Cdex on windoze isn't too bad. Personally I wrote some perl scripts to do this long long ago, and they still serve me well today .

You then have
1) uncompressed masters
2) the ability to re-encode as technologies evolve
3) the ability to put the stuff on ANY device you want

Personally most of my music listening is streaming rather than my own collection nowadays anyway, but the above would have been better, IMO, then online downloads. I want control over the things that I purchase.

You don't need anything like i-tunes, either. Good players will properly organize and index your collection themselves. Just drag/drop over the network or USB. Rockbox, for example, excels at managing music without your having to do anything but properly tag your music (see ripping tools above).

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[kiwimate]

This. I haven't lived in New Zealand for a few years, so I don't know if Real Groovy Records on Queen Street in Auckland still exists. But it was amazing. A room full of used albums, many of which were genuine rarities that you couldn't find anywhere else.

And that includes on-line. There are albums that I cannot buy on-line. The mega-stores don't carry them. They're not available from the artist directly. But I can sometimes find them at the local used music store.

Or I could, before they went out of business because nobody buys albums any more. I do care about the mega-stores going out of business, because there are people who work there who are without a job (I'm talking about the high school kids who had a weekend job there, that kind of person). But I care more about the independent shop that was started with someone's life savings because he loved music. He's the guy who'd find the rarities. And he's the guy who lost his life savings.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

Emphasis on 'reasonable per-song price'. I'm sorry, $2 is not reasonable. $1 is not reasonable in my mind. Knock it down to 25 cents or so, and I'm sure they'll see sales skyrocket. Right now there's a ton of torrenting, because people don't WANT to pay CD prices for something non-physical for a best-of album or whatever. Of course, many people will always torrent for free regardless, so those people can be removed from these equations since they'd never purchase the song no matter what... no lost sales with them one way or another.

But the prices they currently have are literally equivelant to buying a CD if you buy every track. Or higher priced. Serious to god, there's zero post production CD stamping, zero (for all intents and purposes, ignoring of course electricity needed to copy 6 megs of data, etc) cost to creating multiple copies. Why am I paying the same price as it was to get a plastic CD case, printed album art (multiple pages typically), and the physical CD? The cost of ALL of that is gone, except perhaps the initial outlay of the cover art which is usually embedded in the mp3 for some stupid reason). Without all that, the price should be... y'know... lower.

But that'd be asking them to be reasonable.

Now I'm not unreasonable. I'm not one of the ones who thinks all mp3s should be free. It'd be nice, but I'm not a dreamer like that.

But it's give and take. You can't have all the money, and we get none of the added benefits we used to have (case, album art, cd, etc). Drop the price, I'll start buying.

Until such time, screw you, you're just losing my sale by being unreasonable.

And I'm not one to think the band should get zero money either for their work. That's why 99% of their money should come from their day job, aka: playing live shows. I went to a concert a few weeks ago, bought a shirt and some pins, and even donated some extra money to the band's tip box type thing (since it's somewhat rare for them to be able to tour abroad, I help out how I can). But they actually TOUR for their money. Never mind getting free money for the rest of your and your children's lives because of one good CD in the 70's or whatever.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[FunkyELF]

Steve Jobs did not change the music industry, Napster did

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Kozz]

Probably nickelback. They're good as mass production.

I initially read that as ass production. Picking nits, I guess.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[icebraining]

If we go that route, then I could take Ubuntu and wrap it up in proprietary code. After that I donate to some Linux programmers who worked on some small part of it ("but Canonical just steals from the poor coders!") and it's justified!

Sure, that's perfectly legal and fine with me. Companies distribute Linux wrapped up in proprietary code all the time, so what?

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[similar_name]

I DO go to my local CD store, buy $10-$15 CD's, rip them for my own use, AND I contribute to my local economy.

I've never understood how buying anything that is not produced locally benefits the local economy. The money was already in the local economy (you had it). When you buy a CD some of it stays local and some of it goes off to the record company some where else. The net result is that money is removed from the local economy. Now if you purchase from local bands that produce their own CDs that would keep the money local. Even better if someone from a nearby town comes over and buys from your local band.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[kiwimate]

$2 is not reasonable. $1 is not reasonable in my mind. Knock it down to 25 cents or so, and I'm sure they'll see sales skyrocket

Good heavens, you're right. Because there's no support infrastructure, supply chain, or any overhead to support.

there's zero post production CD stamping

Oh thank heavens you clarified this. And here the entire rest of the planet was mistakenly budgeting for things like machines, capital investment and depreciation, maintenance, buildings, etc. Silly buggers.

That's why 99% of their money should come from their day job, aka: playing live shows.

Right. Because writing songs, editing them, and recording them takes no time whatsoever. That's free.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[geekmux]

...Of course, they're still grumbling about it--and many of them still want to slap DRM on their music.

While I'm certainly not standing on the side of MPAA/RIAA here, the reason for DRM is very simple and straightforward from their point of view, as a means to keep the product distribution legitimate and ensure a revenue stream and profitable business model. Yes, I know that "profit" can be demonized here as we all listen to the 1% rapping about the glory of being the 1%, but try and draw an agreeable line between "profitable" and "greedy" with ANY business...it's not that easy, as you'll always find people who will bitch about anything priced higher than "free".

And of course the irony of us bitching about things like DRM is you have to wonder how many businesses today would have gone the way of Napster had it NOT been for some sort of electronic countermeasure to prohibit (or at least deter) theft and protect their revenue source enough to stay operational.

For me, it's not that big of a deal for a much simpler reason. Most music is absolute crap these days(autotune didn't help matters), so it makes it much easier to dust off older CDs to enjoy. Or perhaps even go vinyl, and improve the sound quality even more.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[DigiShaman]

If your smart you grab the used pre-2000s era CD and rip it. Many CDs sold after 2000 have undergone new "remastering" that have suffered because of the loudness war. So let me repeat that. You're source CDs should either be from a flea market or other pre-owned music store. All other newer CDs may burn in a ball of fire. God willing.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

If it weren't for Napster and iTunes we'd all still be driving down to the record store to buy $15 CD's, just to get the one or two songs you actually want and the 10 other songs that are complete filler..

They really shot themselves in the foot with the whole CD single thing, that was gouging pure and simple. I still have an old '45 from 1980 with the original price tag still on it: CAN$1.49. That was when LPs were 40 minutes or less with 8 songs, going for around CAN$9.99.

Hmm? I'm not sure what inflation was in Canada, but pretending those are US prices converts them to $3.89 and $26.08 in 2011 dollars. So, you're saying prices have fallen significantly.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Runaway1956]

Go ahead. Steal you a copy of Ubuntu. Wrap it up in whatever dressing you care to. Lot's of people have already done so, and given it names like Mint. Knock yourself out. As for the "proprietary" bit - better cover all your bases. The minute you begin SELLING your version of Ubuntu, the entire world is going to take notice.

Maybe that's where you're confused. People who "steal" soundtracks, then resell them for profit are an entirely different breed, apart from the common "pirate" who downloads some music for personal use.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

Video game stores is where he went... But those are getting the same thing done to them...

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

I am completely fine with $1.99 for one track, if the rest of the album isn't of any interest. I'm an old Album Rock dude, but will be among the first to recognize how many one/two hit wonders there have been where I won't want the whole CD.

Suppose in the (not too distant) future, next to no one ops to buy entire CDs vs. a single track. Won't all artists then be one or two hit wonders?

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Kleen13]

Arrogant Stoner! We were wondering where you went.. How's your Mom?

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[bennomatic]

It's sad that Napster had to be a sacrifice on the road to the industry finally waking up...

I agree with your general points, although I carry no emotional attachment to the service. I'm thinking of a football metaphor: Napster was the lead offensive blocker; iTunes Music Store was the running back that established the ground game. Amazon, Google Music and any number of other services are the wide receivers who are now able to come into play.

I'm sure that some people would disagree with what services played what roles, and I don't feel strongly enough about it to argue the details, but my main point is that everyone has their role. Napster, at least under that name, was never going to become the main player in the mainstream music industry. But that's OK, I'm sure all the key players from that service are doing fine.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Runaway1956]

If it cost a penny to see a nickelback performance, I'd want a nickel back. I hear them on the radio from time to time. I can't help thinking that they have a sound that COULD be worth a lot. But - it just isn't worth much. Like MightyMartian, I find it difficult to differentiate between one nickelback title and another. They are a cut above rap, but only a cut.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[CmdrPony]

What about if I don't sell it, but give it away for free? I don't profit from it. Yet, I don't give away the source code like I'm supposed to. But as I donated directly to some Linux coders, that it makes it ok right?

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[heinousjay]

They weren't your friends, you just had weed.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Runaway1956]

To a weed dealer, EVERYONE is a "friend". Unless that someone is a cop, a narc, or has no money.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[DerekLyons]

And even bands whose albums I buy don't consistently produce albums I want to listen to all the tracks on.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off about your stereotype of a stoner. Asshole.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

The good news is that finally, after more than a decade of seeing a solid brick on the scope, CDs are being mastered with actual lows and highs again.

The problem is that most people listen to them on relatively crappy hardware (I'm sorry, but that AAC file from iTunes does not even compare to what comes from a record player, or even lossless compressed CD rip, and even then, the DAC on an iDevice can nowhere play tracks as well as a dedicated appliance in a studio.) Because of this, crappy mixes mixed to as close to 0dB as possible are still the norm.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Pope]

Funny thing I've found over the last 10-15 years or so, I've been buying most of my CDs (and now electronically distributed music) without even having heard a single track. They're either bands I already know and will get because it's their latest, or I'll have heard about a band/read a review and taken a chance. Found lots of great music this way. Or heard one of their songs and bought a different album.

That said, I also haven't listened to the radio in about the same amount of time :)

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[tripleevenfall]

The major question is, who has tastes so bad that they'd even want to listen to any one of the twelve different versions of that song?

Raah raahhh booze, drugs, stripclubs yeah! Raaaahhh party, drugs, booze, cars! Cars, booze, party, girls! Yeah! (guitar solo)

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[cforciea]

The fallacy you are falling for is that having a healthy economy is about moving money in. An economic ecosystem that imports exactly as much value as it exports can still be anything from completely horrible to stellar, and a lot of it has to do with how quickly money is moving around. I mean, when people talk about the economic crash of 2008 destroying x number of dollars of wealth, they aren't claiming that dollar bills spontaneously combusted.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[tripleevenfall]

Yes, if the CDs were manufactured locally, if the instruments and equipment used in the production were manufactured and sourced locally...

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Runaway1956]

"However, were you even alive in the days when there really was a record store culture?"

I'm 55, and only vaguely recall the record stores. As you say, the chain retailers took over. I was in junior high school when the "Town Mall" was built, complete with a music outlet. That business was so profitable, that the town soon had several stores competing, only to see them all snowballed by the larger retailers. At that time, it wasn't WalMart, but K-Mart. Then it was "Adios, record stores!"

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[tripleevenfall]

Come on, you know that no one will consider you socially adept until you have equal mastery of Half-Life and Fallout

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Myopic]

Wow, really? I buy CDs for one, two, or sometimes three dollars used. My favorite site is Half, but there are many others. Consider using them -- it really sounds like you are still purposely repeating behavior which results in you getting screwed. I can only imagine that you do that in order to preserve your plausible claim to the right to complain, but if you ever feel like actually solving the problem of overpriced music, you can do that easily.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Runaway1956]

So, what's your problem here? You want to lock up the source? First, you can't. Anyone who wants the source can go upstream for it, even if you don't provide it. Second, if you could lock up the source, you would be in court really quick. You can't take away from the public what the public owns. DUHHH. Next, you'll be trying to sell land located in a national forest!

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't compare Napster and iTunes......totally different ethos......

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[flimflammer]

What's wrong with paying $1.99 for one track when you would have had to pay $5-10 for the one or two tracks you wanted anyhow?

Just because it had a better cost to track ratio before doesn't mean you were getting a better deal if you never listened to the other tracks. You were essentially paying more for bonus material you didn't care about.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you should patronize better artists if 80% of the album is filler.
As somewhat of an audiophile I refuse to pay money for lossy compressed music. I buy CDs and rip them to FLAC on my media server.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[LoudNoiseElitist]

If the artists that you listen to produce albums that are mostly filler, it's probably time to find some new artists.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Myopic]

I would agree, and I would add Maroon 5, except that they don't actually fit the description, because they can only produce zero songs per album that I'd actually want to purchase.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[LordLimecat]

You should probably check out iTunes or Amazon, since their mp3 albums are only $10 (for between 15 and 30 songs), and their individual tracks only $1. Sounds like youre getting ripped off.

Some of the prices are dropping below $1, actually.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Captain.Abrecan]

If a media player holds thousands of songs at 1-2 dollars each, isn't it impossible to fill one of those things legally without spending assloads of cash? What happened to the starving artist anyways, why the frig do people deserve to be rich for making some shitty music? There is a homeless dude right outside playing the guitar better than SRV.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

Blah... the local CD stores in my area are all downtown or on the university campus. This means that I have to find a parking garage, get my vehicle into it, step over/around the aggressive bums, look at a picked over selection of used CDs with nothing interesting. Perhaps a copy of a Neutral Milk Hotel CD from the mid 1990s, or perhaps a copy of XX's latest work languishing in a display. Find something that might qualify for music, wait in line 20 minutes as the poor cashier deals with obnoxious people who don't understand "NO CHECKS" means don't pull out the checkbook and demand that the guy accepts it, pay for my CD, go up the crowded elevator to find my vehicle has a new dent due to a sorority chick still a bit blitzed on Jello shots, pay $25.00 for the privilege of using the parking garage, and try to make it out without any further damage to my vehicle.

Or I can tap twice on iTunes, get the album downloaded to my iWhatzit and be done with it.

Guess what... unless the CD store is in a place where people can reasonable get to it without having it become a pilgrimage, I'm not darkening their door. I don't mind paying a premium for local businesses, but when that premium means I really pay $45 + a trip to a body shop + two hours of my time, I say screw it.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[m50d]

Nope. What you're missing is that giving people binaries without source isn't wrong because it's a violation of copyright, it's wrong because it's wrong. (I will say that if you donated to some coders then doing it with ubuntu is no worse than doing it with your own code).

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[cforciea]

"And of course the irony of us bitching about things like DRM is you have to wonder how many businesses today would have gone the way of Napster had it NOT been for some sort of electronic countermeasure to prohibit (or at least deter) theft and protect their revenue source enough to stay operational."

It is a nonzero number, but probably not for the reasons you are thinking. It has nothing to do with keeping people from piracy. I'd be highly surprised if anybody sold copies of music in excess of the cost of requiring DRM, but investors need to be pleased. Investing in DRM probably kept people from going under at the whim of ignorant investors.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[oldmac31310]

You don't understand the compression issue. There is nothing wrong with normalizing tracks so that the maximum loudness is close to 0dB. The reason for the 'solid brick' you see and hear is the overuse/abuse of compression so that all sounds/instruments and parts of the track become close to 0dB.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

It may easier to get the music you want but if anything the pricing has gotten worse, especially for the artists. iTunes completely eliminates the need for physical production facilities, warehouses, physical distribution, and physical stores and yet a 15 song album still costs $15 to download. This means that you have reduced the overhead costs by a huge factor and kept the overall price the same to the consumer, and by taking a larger share of the profit (Apple takes 30% of each sale) and the record industry keeping a larger chunk of their slice (as low as 12% of the 70% that the record company gets goes to the artist) the overall picture is now worse than it was 10 years ago.

You can rationalize it if you want by saying that you can just buy individual songs and not the entire album and that is a sure benefit, but you are paying a huge premium at .99 for that one song when you look at the total picture. If the cost of producing and distributing an album has gone down 90% so should the price of the finished (and many times inferior) digital product.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

I listen to bands so niche that even they haven't heard their music.

I like Beethoven too.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[tmarsh86]

I know it's only anecdotal, but in two different cities where I lived I saw the local indy record store thrive well into the 90s, long after the chain stores should have killed them off, as you say. It wasn't until the late 90s, early 2000s that they both kicked the bucket. Probably a combo of both teh interwebz and the Wal-mart. But I still loved to go there right until the end 'cause you never knew what you would find... well, except for bootlegs of Dead concerts. You always found those.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

Point of interest:

apple. did. not. pioneer. online. music. sales.

Fan boy.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Hatta]

If it weren't for napster, I'd still be downloading albums over IRC.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly my thoughts
http://www.canadianfreestuff.com/canada-coupons/

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

CmdrPony is a known copyright troll.

Copyright troll is copyrighted! Er, wait

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[ganjadude]

tru

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[mcavic]

Won't all artists then be one or two hit wonders?

Some, probably, because you can sell one track digitally and avoid the cost of producing a physical CD. But still, the more music you produce, the more you'll sell.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[mcavic]

We still have a local record store. It's called Borders.

Oh, wait.....

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Overhead should be drastically cut, and I'm sure most of it can be outright eliminated. The vice president of the RIAA? HE has an annual salary of 1.5 million. That's an amount that most of the population will never see over the course of their entire life. Those people can cut their salaries down a full order of magnitude, and put all that excess money into the support infrastructure, supply chain (supply chain?!? What, is a website designer getting paid millions these days?) and anything else required. If they physically cannot live on 150k a year, there's something severely, severely wrong with them. The price stays high because these execs still want more money than god.

2. Printing CD's requires raw materials for paper plastic, printer ink, as well as manufacturing those into the products. Each and every one of those raw materials is no longer required to be purchased. Which should drop the price of the songs. There's no shipping of the physical product, no truck drivers to pay, no gas to purchase, no storage required for more than a server room, all of that is gone. This is just simple addition. Money not spend on manufacturing == price should go down to compensate. How is this difficult to understand?

3. That's why they make back said money while playing live shows. Their industry isn't like fast food, where you pay money out and receive your product instantly. They put money into it beforehand, and expect to make money in the long run. Otherwise I'd be able to get a guitar for free if I promised to put out a song with it.

Stop being deliberately dense, and come up with a valid reason why buying mp3s online cost the same or more than the physical media. Explain to me how the overhead is somehow higher when everything is done digitally. I would LOVE to hear a rational, factual explanation of this.

Your turn.

All of this is of course completely ignoring the fact that the RIAA gives extraordinarily little money to the artist regardless.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Dogtanian]

They really shot themselves in the foot with the whole CD single thing, that was gouging pure and simple.

CDs always used to be grossly overpriced in the days before the original Napster and online retailers like Amazon selling them much cheaper. But CD singles were the worst of all, in the UK at least.

Circa the mid-90s, while you used to sometimes be able to get them for £1.99 on the first week (when they wanted them to get into the charts), they were usually £3.99 otherwise.

They usually included more tracks than a traditional vinyl single, but those were still essentially B-sides (occasional hidden gem, but mostly second-rate filler or crap remixes). Oh, and they usually released two versions of the single with different bonus tracks, to get the fans to buy both and push it up the charts.

Most people buy singles for the A-side anyway though, so you were basically paying £3.99 for the song you wanted. In today's money, that's almost £6 FOR ONE DAMN SONG! (Over $9 (US) if then converted at today's rates).

So yeah, f*** the CD single and good riddance.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't steal Ubuntu. They even provide downloadable ISO files so you can write and distribute their discs. Maybe your puny mind is confused with RedHat and trademarks?

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

We called them C-Dingles.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[thisnamestoolong]

First of all, you are misunderstanding the reason that artists create things. People create things because they want to create things. This is why there are so many starving artists out there; millions of people are willing to go without in order to continue focusing on expressing themselves and creating art. Any musician who molds their output completely around profits is NOT an artist by any stretch of the imagination; they are a corporate shill and a hack. This is the biggest problem with the media companies, they used to produce art, now they generate content. It quite honestly makes me throw up a little bit in my mouth and makes me yearn for the day that the RIAA, MPAA and all the other associated blood-sucking, soul-killing leeches die off and sink into the mud like the filthy parasites that they are.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[sapgau]

You weren't supposed to share your "secret" if you wanted to pay up to $3 for used CDs.
Supply and demand my friend.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

I like Beethoven too.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Scarred Intellect]

You're missing the point. Someone is still paying for overpriced music. It just isn't you.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not possible for used CD sales to replace new CD sales completely.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Mean Variance]

It's been a few years, but your comment reminds of the band Matchbox Twenty whose style of music was perfectly captured and critiqued.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[CmdrPony]

Yes, I will lock the source including all the modifications that I make to it. Then I will only offer a binary, and no one will get the source for those modifications.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[cjb658]

Beethoven?

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[steveg]

Guess it depends where you were. I'm 56, and when I went to high school all I had available were chain stores. When I got to college, I'm not sure there were any chain stores in town -- all the record stores were local.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

"If your smart"

Oh, the irony...

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[organgtool]

Musicians usually don't make much, if any, money at all on merchandise. The merch contracts are usually set up by the labels and make sure that everyone gets their cut off the top, leaving the artists with the scraps. If you haven't read Steve Albini's "The Problem With Music", he explains how merch works (as well as a ton of other ways the labels screw their artists).

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Belial6]

Most music has always been abolute crap.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[jgrahn]

The music industry had to be dragged kicking, clawing, and screaming into the 21st century. If it weren't for Napster and iTunes we'd all still be driving down to the record store to buy $15 CD's, just to get the one or two songs you actually want and the 10 other songs that are complete filler.

I never understood that idea. The artists I like enough to buy from don't produce filler songs, and tend to produce albums which fit together. I bought a "best of" by one of my favorite bands (The Triffids) recently, but I couldn't listen to it -- the "best of" songs spanned five years or so, and didn't fit together on one album.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Quirkz]

Any musician who molds their output completely around profits is NOT an artist by any stretch of the imagination; they are a corporate shill and a hack.

I'd argue that over the last few millennia, most art was done under contract and performed almost entirely for profits. The "money ruins art" concept is relatively recent.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[GrumpySteen]

> Suppose in the (not too distant) future, next to no one ops to buy entire CDs vs. a single track. Won't all artists then be one or two hit wonders?

It depends on how talented the artist is and how devoted the artist's fans are. There are people who will only buy singles that they hear and like, but many people prefer to buy albums (especially if they've heard several songs they like one one album). A few will fall in love with the music and buy absolutely everything the artist produces.

Look at Lady Gaga's sales for The Fame Monster. 5.8 million albums in 2010. The songs were available as an MP3 single for $0.99 the same time the album became available at the end of 2009. Half the songs were on The Fame which released in 2008. People still bought millions of copies of the album.

For a (much) smaller artist, look at The Dollyrots. It's probable that you've never heard of them, though they've gotten enough exposure that it's not impossible. They are definitely not a superstar band.

They did a kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a new album. Of the 540 people that pledged money up front, only 39 pledged the minimum required to get a download of the album or less and 110 more pledged the minimum to get a physical CD. 291 (over 50%) of the people pledged more than the minimum necessary to get the album in the form they wanted it in.

The rewards varied, but as you get up into the hundreds of dollars, you can be certain that you're looking at the hardcore fans who will buy anything this group produces. 15 people pledged $300 each to get the band to write songs for them (which, since there are so many, are going to be made into a 2nd album that everyone who pledged gets a copy of). Two people pledged $1000 each to spend a day in the studio with the band where they get to watch, sing gang vocals and join in on hand claps. One idiot pledged $500 to get the album and a bunny suit (disclaimer: yes, I'm the idiot). These are fans who will not only buy anything the band produces, but will act as patrons to help fund the band's production of new material.

So... yes, there may be fewer people who buy albums, but there will always be people who buy albums even if individual songs are available. There will also always be fans who will buy everything produced by their favorite artists and dedicated fans with money who will help their favorite bands far more than a CD sale ever could.

The flip side of this is the artist's viewpoint and the realities of how music is produced. It's more cheaper and faster to have a dozen songs you want to record when you go in the studio than to do a dozen sessions for one song each. If you record it all in one go, for example, you only set up all the equipment once, as opposed to setting it up a dozen times. You're also in the groove as you move from one song to the next. You don't have to spend a lot of time warming up and getting ready to record. The same thing applies to what the sound engineers engineers do as well. They need setup time and time with the band to discuss what the band wants. Mastering a dozen songs in one session is far faster than a dozen sessions with one song mastered in each and sound engineers charge by the hour.

tl;dr - Albums will continue to exist because there are plenty of fans who will buy albums and it's cheaper to record music an album at a time. And you should totally buy Dollyrots albums or might find a guy in a bunny suit peeing on your lawn.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

If only that guy ripped and uploaded those rarities instead of worshiping their decaying physical form they wouldn't be rarities. Or would the music suck if everyone knew about it?

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Siridar]

Suppose in the (not too distant) future, next to no one ops to buy entire CDs vs. a single track. Won't all artists then be one or two hit wonders?

Aren't most of them already one-hit wonders?

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there something I'm missing here? I've never bought a single digital download online, because I regularly buy used albums in CD format for under £2/3 from the usual online retailers. Sometimes I get a brand new copy for the same price.

Anyone paying more than that must be buying recently released music. If you're more likely to buy something because somebody told you it's "new", then the amount of money you're spending is the least of your problems.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Anonymous Coward]

honestly for those of us who were jacking music way back in the day....when it first became possible.... napster was kind of a joke. i found it didnt work well and it was just the way people who werent savvy did it. not trying to sound arrogant but napster was the equivalent of limewire or frostwire for the kiddies today and both of those systems suck ass. napster got a lot of credit for starting p2p music sharing when it was already out and being used.... i remember being pretty pissed when they started advertising and i was thinking "shut up guys its supposed to be a tucking secret youre going to ruin this"....and then they did. onebgood thing is they did take the fall instead of the other random sources getting "caught"....

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[arkane1234]

Not for the last 5 or so years...

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[arkane1234]

Apple pioneered online music sales (without the periods, as you seem to have a lot of them) a lot like Henry Ford pioneered car production.

Neither invented their products, however before they did it... well... everyone else kinda was being lame.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[uninformedLuddite]

The major question is, who has tastes so bad that they'd even want to listen to any one of the twelve different versions of that song?

The same person who has every AC/DC album made since Bon Scott died.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[uninformedLuddite]

I have a very rare copy of Superwomble on a 45

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[uninformedLuddite]

Can you lend me a $100? I'm good for it, mate.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Myopic]

Good one, thanks for the tittle.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's

[Lando]

Case in point, Prince's early work all tended to be high quality and good music, buying the entire albums was a no brainer for me, however, a lot of the bands that are put together by the record studios are basically the same bland thing over and over just to fill time on the album, 1 track is more than enough to see all of their "talent". Most songs produced are just filler for the rest of the disk, very few artists are actually coming up with "new" quality songs for every track on a cd, most just fill the required track with something to get the cd filled. Or at least that's my opinion.

Napster was the Facebook of our generation

[Anonymous Coward]

And won't be missed for the same reasons.

Who cares ?

[mbone]

Really, who cares ? The original Napster is long gone; this is just a corporate entity that bought the name.

Re:Who cares ?

[ArhcAngel]

Actually it just forked and became Limewire, Bearshare, etc.

Re:Who cares ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do, Napster was the best option for streaming music because:
1. Doesn't require a facebook account to signup (Spotify requires a facebook account to signup, I won't do that)
2. Best mobile app (I had many issues with the Rhapsody app)
3. Most variety of music (except Spotify)
4. Able to install on more than 1 mobile device without paying extra (Rhapsody requires you to register mobile devices before you can sign in with said mobile device, default limit is 1 device. Pay $5 for 2 extra, lame.)

Napster = Rhapsody = Spotify = Rdio

Re:Who cares ?

[blueg3]

That's Gnutella. The Napster protocol is now largely unused. (At the time it was shut down, there were tools to redirect the client to different central servers, but that's no longer really popular.) The Gnutella protocol, on the other hand, is still used by a wide variety of clients, including Limewire, Frostwire, and Bearshare.

Re:Who cares ?

[rec9140]

"The Gnutella protocol, on the other hand, is still used by a wide variety of clients, including Limewire, Frostwire, and Bearshare."

Frostwire ate itself at a recent version , 5.x branch, and is Torrent only now. Many persons have refused to upgrade due to this and are using the 4.x branch instead.

It was the best all round P2P client for Linux.

Bad move on their part, but too late now.

Re:Who cares ?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

One of the things I liked about Napster was you paid them $60 for unlimited access to any of their music, on-demand. Then you got 60 MP3 downloads. Mp3s are usually a dollar a song anyway so the year of streaming was pure icing.

Re:Who cares ?

[CaseCrash]

Frostwire ate itself at a recent version , 5.x branch, and is Torrent only now.

They probably did it so they wouldn't have to try and filter out all the child porn on the gnutella network. That crap was all over the network, ugh. Although they were doing a pretty good filtering job towards the end.

If you were on windows I'd recommend Soulseek for whatever you couldn't find a torrent of, but I'm not sure about linux.

iNapster

[Anonymous Coward]

Add an i in front of the name. Boom, that changes everything - instant sales.

Re:iNapster

[ksd1337]

The "i" of this decade is the "e" of the '90s.

morality

[masternerdguy]

Cue defense of music/software piracy in 3....2....1...

Re:morality

[Anonymous Psychopath]

Cue defense of music/software piracy in 3....2....1...

Why should I pay when self-delusional bullshit rationalizations cost nothing?

Re:morality

[masternerdguy]

Because when someone steals from the open source community its a sin but stealing from businesses is cool. I love slashdot.

Re:morality

[cheekyjohnson]

And then cue defense of copyrights/patents in 3...2...1...

Anyone who says anything that disagrees with my opinion is just delusional. I'm the only correct one!

Re:morality

[MightyMartian]

We are talking about a business here that has regularly ripped off its own artists. I keep up to date on Robert Fripp's struggles with UMG/Universal. They just do whatever they want, and when he demands accounting information and information on how songs that he never gave permission to be placed on download services ended up there, he basically enters that evil realm of lawyer/accountant double-talk.

However bad music piracy may be, the biggest pirates of them all have always been the record companies. They'll even try to steal of big name acts. Both Pink Floyd and the Beatles have had to go to court to retrieve royalties or to enforce contractual requirements.

Re:morality

[masternerdguy]

If you really hate them don't buy their products. But that doesn't mean you can steal them. Hell, you can go make your own damn music and post it on Magnatune or Jamendo (which is the biggest threat to record companies anyway).

Re:morality

[DeathFromSomewhere]

That doesn't give you the freedom to take whatever you want from them.

Re:morality

[MightyMartian]

I'm not trying to justify piracy. I'm trying to point out that it has always struck me as the height of hypocrisy for record companies to bemoan piracy when they've been stealing from artists for years. The same goes for the movie industry, where Hollywood "accounting" would most likely, in any other industry, lead to lengthy prison sentences for embezzlement.

Re:morality

[icebraining]

Copyright infringement != stealing. In neither case.

But, GPL infringement is often for profit, while file sharing isn't. You can be sure that many people that defend file sharing won't agree with making money from it.

Re:morality

[cheekyjohnson]

Good thing he's not taking anything, then.

Re:morality

[kiwimate]

Copyright infringement != stealing. In neither case.

Semantics. And so what? Just because one phrase isn't functionally equivalent to another doesn't make it any less wrong, illegal, and/or immoral/amoral.

But, GPL infringement is often for profit, while file sharing isn't.

Ah, now we're into the justification phase. Why talk about file sharing when we started with copyright infringement? Copyright infringement definitely is about profit. You get something for free instead of paying out $15 for it - you profit.

You can be sure that many people that defend file sharing won't agree with making money from it.

Because some things are only slightly wrong. As long as there's something worse that you're not doing, that makes your crime/law breaking kind of trivial and that's easy to morph into "it's really okay", right?

I love the defenses on Slashdot. People seem to have this Robin Hood mentality, in much the same way Anonymous stealing from banks to give to charity does. Either that, or they shrug and say "the artists don't get much profit" and thereby defend ripping them off of what little profit they might see. Unless all pirates/copyright infringers/whatever you want to call yourself to make yourself feel better do the right (?) thing and send some money directly to the artist. As has been suggested/stated on this site many, many times.

Re:morality

[cheekyjohnson]

Semantics.

I think it's good to point out inaccuracies, semantics or not.

wrong

And depending on your moral code, it might not even be wrong to begin with.

justification phase.

How horrible that is!

you profit.

Not losing something is not the same as gaining something. You didn't gain anything, you just kept what you already had.

Because some things are only slightly wrong. As long as there's something worse that you're not doing, that makes your crime/law breaking kind of trivial and that's easy to morph into "it's really okay", right?

If it could be worse, then the current situation is good...

I love the defenses on Slashdot.

On Slashdot? They're present everywhere. And 'bad' arguments are, from what I've seen, present on both sides. One side insists what the other side is doing as wrong, the other side insists that it's not, and many, from what I've seen, believe that they're absolutely right and cannot be wrong.

"Shut up, evil capitalist pigs! You're just a corporate shill!"
"You just want to steal from artists and get everything for free, you thieves! Trying to 'justify' your actions is wrong and something that can't be done!"

Re:morality

[icebraining]

Semantics. And so what? Just because one phrase isn't functionally equivalent to another doesn't make it any less wrong, illegal, and/or immoral/amoral.

It's not just semantics. When something is stolen, someone will lose part of their property. When copyright infringement occurs, nobody loses property.

Also, while it doesn't necessarily make it any less wrong, it does make it not necessarily morally equivalent.

Ah, now we're into the justification phase.

No, I'm just explaining that you can hold the two positions without it entailing hypocrisy. I don't need to justify anything to anyone.

Why talk about file sharing when we started to with copyright infringement?

Because that's the copyright infringement that is commonly defended on Slashdot, which was what GP was talking about. Please try to keep up by reading whole thread, not just an isolated post. Context matters.

Copyright infringement definitively is about profit. You get something for free instead of paying out $15 for it - you profit

Profit is defined as a financial gain or advantage. There's no financial gain.

That you somehow "gain" $15 is sustained on the premise that the infringer would have paid for it if he couldn't obtain it in any other way, which is completely unfounded. For all we know, those $15 don't even exist.

Because some things are only slightly wrong. As long as there's something worse that you're not doing, that makes your crime/law breaking kind of trivial and that's easy to morph into "it's really okay", right?

No, that's a complete strawman. That assumes one considers copyright infringement wrong in the first place, when one can consider only copyright infringement for profit to be wrong.

To make an analogy, you could use that same argument against someone who had assaulted in self defense: is that wrong, because assault is usually wrong? No, because they're fundamentally different actions.

By the way, being against the law is rather irrelevant to whether it's wrong or not, and I'm sure you can think of many examples of illegal acts which aren't immoral.

Re:morality

[Anonymous Psychopath]

We are talking about a business here that has regularly ripped off its own artists. I keep up to date on Robert Fripp's struggles with UMG/Universal. They just do whatever they want, and when he demands accounting information and information on how songs that he never gave permission to be placed on download services ended up there, he basically enters that evil realm of lawyer/accountant double-talk.

However bad music piracy may be, the biggest pirates of them all have always been the record companies. They'll even try to steal of big name acts. Both Pink Floyd and the Beatles have had to go to court to retrieve royalties or to enforce contractual requirements.

At least the label doesn't pretend that they're somehow helping while ripping you off.

Re:morality

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, how about we call copyright infringement murder or rape, and when someone pirates a song, they are raping the *AA?

On the scale of wrongs, copyright infringement that isn't for money is far closer to Beavis & Butthead sneaking in the back door of a movie theater to watch the latest Twilight movie than them grabbing a CD off the racks of a CD shop.

Calling a spade a spade is important. Trying to associate IP infringement with something else unrelated just means people will stop reading anything you say, perhaps just tack a troll mod, and move on.

Re:morality

[LordLimecat]

We are talking about a business here that has regularly ripped off its own artists

So youre saying that the artists in question are incapable of making their own decisions and signing their own contracts, and that you should be the sole arbitrator of which contracts are legitimate and which are not?

Or are you rather suggesting that, law be damned, two wrongs DO make a right?

Re:morality

[LordLimecat]

Copyright infringement != stealing. In neither case.

It is a hair-splitting distinction. In either case, value-- whether perceived, or real-- is lost, which directly impacts the salability of a good (whether physical or digital).

Re:morality

[LordLimecat]

And depending on your moral code, it might not even be wrong to begin with.

Unless you intend to turn this into a religious or philosophic discussion, the legal code of a society is what is most relevant here.

Re:morality

[cforciea]

"Semantics." The semantic distinction in this case is incredibly important. "And so what? Just because one phrase isn't functionally equivalent to another doesn't make it any less wrong, illegal, and/or immoral/amoral."

Yes it does, at least in the case of being wrong or immoral. And in the case of illegality, noncommercial piracy might not be technically less illegal, but only in the sense that murder is not more illegal than piracy.

Now that I am of age and education to have a job that pays enough to afford my software/music/movies/etc, I don't pirate them anymore, but I did years ago. And you know what? It was wrong, but sometimes distinctions about how wrong something is are incredibly important. People listen to honest arguments a lot more readily than trumped up exaggerations, and conflating stealing with piracy is dishonest. They are fundamentally different, and you aren't going to convince anybody to quit pirating movies by lying.

Re:morality

[LordLimecat]

Anyone who says anything that disagrees with my opinion is just delusional. I'm the only correct one![/sarcasm]

Were you INTENDING to be ironic?

Re:morality

[kiwimate]

I think it's good to point out inaccuracies, semantics or not.

It can also be done for little purpose other than to shift attention away from the actual topic.

Not losing something is not the same as gaining something. You didn't gain anything, you just kept what you already had.

Nope, wrong. I understand what you're getting at, but it's pure pedantic sophistry. Read the definition of profit. In my case, you gained my music, representing a huge investment of time and money on my part, and I lost something - that investment that I made. Personally. Not a record exec. Me, and the other guys in my band.

If it could be worse, then the current situation is good...

At best that's debatable. At worst, it's amoral, narcissistic, and verging on sociopathic.

On Slashdot? They're present everywhere. And 'bad' arguments are, from what I've seen, present on both sides.

Shrug...I can't disagree with you on this point. My background is that I'm an artist who has suffered from people pirating my music. I watched them shrug their shoulders when the lead singer told them they're hurting us. We put everything into our music, stayed out of the corporate circle, self-produced albums, and people pirated them and didn't give us anything, even at concerts where they had plenty of opportunity. They told us it was easier and cheaper to copy my CD. We asked them to at least buy a t-shirt. Nobody did.

We all lost a lot of money. Some of us got divorced. One of the bass players descended into drugs. I think he's healthy now, but he literally has nothing other than his clothes and his guitar. He never gets to see his kids and spends every night sleeping on someone's couch. It's a shitty life. One of us is trying again, a solo career, after having made a lot of money outside of the music industry. He's struggling but optimistic.

I'm not saying that all of this happened because of piracy. Of course it didn't. But piracy hurt us all financially - measurably, and significantly. We could quantify how much we lost due to piracy (and again - we never went through a record company - it wasn't a faceless exec losing money, it was me and my bandmates having to sell a guitar or an amp or a keyboard to get to the next gig), and it was too much for us to go on. It wasn't even that high a hurdle. If we'd sold 20% of the albums that were copied, we'd have been able to keep going.

If someone wants a figure, there you have one. For my band, my specific context, if one fifth of the people who copied our album had bought it instead, we'd have been able to continue, financially speaking.

Not one of us produces commercial music now. Me, I lost a lot of money from piracy and had to sell a lot my equipment at one point to pay debts. I'm not bitter. Some of my band mates are, but I'm not. Stuff happens. You take risks and sometimes they don't pay off, and I always knew the music industry was hard. But I do have a perspective that a lot of people on Slashdot don't understand.

Re:morality

[cheekyjohnson]

Why would that be most relevant when he's the one that brought up the word "wrong"? I wouldn't say that the law is always right, and I'm pretty sure that people (in countries where this is true) know that copyright infringement is illegal.

When someone uses a word like that, I will attempt to 'correct' them.

Re:morality

[cheekyjohnson]

It can also be done for little purpose other than to shift attention away from the actual topic.

No, because you can debate more than one point at a time. And the exact same thing could be said about people claiming that it's theft. If someone says something that I feel is technically incorrect, then I will probably attempt to correct them. If they don't want that, then they can try to avoid saying things that I think are technically incorrect. And if they don't wish to do that, they could always not comment at all. Or just deal with the replies.

I understand what you're getting at, but it's pure pedantic sophistry.

It's not pedantic to me.

In my case, you gained my music

And? From what I saw, he was talking about people who receive money by selling copyrighted goods. Then you claimed that pirates profit. I interpreted that as meaning that pirates somehow receive money whenever they download a copyrighted good. But maybe I just misinterpreted you.

representing a huge investment of time and money on my part, and I lost something - that investment that I made.

You already spent the time and money to make the goods. No matter what the pirate does, I don't see how they could possibly take something that you've already lost.

And it isn't the pirate that incurred those losses upon you. You did that of your own volition (something that they likely had absolutely no part in). I don't disagree that some (the exact number is something I am unsure of) cause a loss of potential profit.

At best that's debatable. At worst, it's amoral, narcissistic, and verging on sociopathic.

That was actually sarcasm. I've seen the "it could be worse" arguments quite a bit. And while it is possible to feel good because the worst hasn't happened yet, I doubt most people really feel that way (and it likely doesn't make the current situation good in most people's eyes).

My background is that I'm an artist who has suffered from people pirating my music.

I wonder how many people pirated the music.

We could quantify how much we lost due to piracy

You know exactly how many pirates there were?

In this capitalistic society, I agree that if you are able to pay an artist and wish for them to produce further content, it would be smart to pay them. Especially if they're independent. I don't think it's actual harm if someone doesn't pay, but I do think it is a potential loss of potential gain.

Re:morality

[LordLimecat]

Because in the absence of a philosophic or religious grounding, you are either left with subjective morality where everyone determines what is right for them; or else you must include some degree of "social contract" in your conception of right and wrong. Certainly if our country was founded with a clause specifically for the protection of copyright, and there is no clear "this tramples on Joes rights" or "this oppresses group A because of what kind of human being they are [that is, male, female, black, white, etc]", then you will have to a lot better than simply declaring "copyright is bad because I think so", given its 200 year history.

The civil rights reforms were one thing, the case was rather easy to make that separate was NOT equal, and that there was NO rational basis for oppressing one group due to their ancestry other than straight up bigotry.

Copyright, on the other hand, has strong arguments both for and against it, and if you dont understand THAT, then you havent been paying attention.

Re:morality

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't give you the freedom to take whatever you want from them.

Whoops! Sorry, but here on Slashdot, mentioning any word similar to "take" or "steal" in the context of piracy (but only from big evil corporations) immediately loses you the argument! It's sort of like Godwin's Law, but for desperately self-serving rationalization. Remember, while any other word can evolve as a part of the natural progression of language development, "take" and "steal" are iron-clad in referring to the physical removal of a PHYSICAL OBJECT, else all the pirates would have a harder time justifying their actions.

It's the same way that "pirate" and its derivatives may ONLY refer to people on boats. Bullshit bureaucratic word games and overly politically correct language correction: It's not just for suits and senators any more!

Re:morality

[DeathFromSomewhere]

It's kind of irrelevant and pedantic in this context.

Re:morality

[cheekyjohnson]

Because in the absence of a philosophic or religious grounding, you are either left with subjective morality where everyone determines what is right for them;

That's not even what I meant. He stated that something was wrong (or, at least, he mentioned the word), so I said that that's not necessarily the case. Life as we know it goes on. The laws stay the same.

Really, all I meant to imply was that it wasn't necessarily absolutely wrong (not that he said that it was).

NO rational basis

There's nothing inherently irrational about emotions. Certainly, they can sometimes lead someone to use logical fallacies and such, but they aren't inherently irrational.

and if you dont understand THAT

I don't see where I said that that wasn't the case. Although I do think that "strong" is subjective.

Re:morality

[cheekyjohnson]

It's not "pedantic" to me. I apparently feel that being technically correct is important.

But, in addition to that, it could make people get the wrong idea about what copyright infringement really is. Other times, using such words could make people who know what it is outright dismiss you from the very beginning.

Re:morality

[MightyMartian]

In some cases, as with King Crimson and the Beatles, for instance, the record company basically ignored its contractual and fiduciary obligations and did whatever it wanted and basically said "Don't like it, sue us." Stealing is certainly wrong, whether it's some guy using Bittorrent or a big multinational company ignoring signed contracts and evading paying royalties or licensing songs for download when it does not in fact have the legal right to license said songs.

Can I make it any plainer than that?

Re:morality

[LordLimecat]

Then what they did was illegal; that has no bearing on whether they have the standing and right to defend their other copyrights.

Re:morality

[cheekyjohnson]

The world is irrelevant to whether or not they can 'justify' (none is needed) their actions.

But I do feel that it's technically incorrect. Yes, language evolves, but that doesn't mean that I'd support the word "murder" meaning the same thing as "theft." It's simply confusing and may give people the wrong idea about what is happening.

And I don't feel that the word 'pirate' is as misleading (although it still might be).

Re:morality

[Musc]

I don't get why this seems noteworthy or odd to you. THe open source community is our friends, but businesses are the enemy. Of course we want to steal from the enemy, but we would prefer that the enemy not steal from us. This is just basic logic and human nature.

The Real Question is....

[apcullen]

How did they stay in business as long as they did?

Goodnight, sweet prince

[unsanitary999]

Rhapsody's picking them up. I'm sure Napster will be JUST FINE.

morality of nerds..

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently copyright is only important when GPL'd or other open-source software is infringed upon.

Napster???

[courteaudotbiz]

I didn't know that Napster still existed...

2001 called.

[Anonymous Coward]

It wants its news back.

No need to be illegal any more

[sandytaru]

I'm happy with my free podcasts. Over a gigabyte of fresh, free music weekly, and the artists putting out the podcasts/radio shows encourageyou to download them. ("Put it in your playlist and listen to it nonstop for the rest of the week" Above& Beyond chimed in a few weeks ago during "Trance Around the World.")

Pioneers have it rough

[ackthpt]

Columbia PC was the first to do battle to defend their right to manufacture PC clones. Don't hear much of them now, do you?

I wonder what they'll do with the Cat with headphones logo.

Re:Pioneers have it rough

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what they'll do with the Cat with headphones logo.

Probably sell it to the porn industry. I'm certain there's something they can do with a "pussy" logo.

Of course, it's going to be (not so) hard when I look down at the Napster logo on my condom, and Lars Ulrich pops into my head.

Repost

[Joe Jordan]

Come on guys, this was posted 11 years ago now.

Re:Repost

[socrplayr813]

Napster, as it stood back then, is long dead. The Napster being discussed now is (was?) a music store that was formed from the ashes of the old music-sharing service. The second sentence of the summary even explains it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster

How you people get informative mods, I'll never understand.

Re:Repost

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoooosh

Re:Repost

[Anonymous Coward]

at least 11 years before a repost is better than the norm around here.......

Re:Repost

[Anonymous Coward]

> How you people get informative mods, I'll never understand.

I suspect that's due to missing a sense of humor.

Re:Repost

[MrVictor]

Not sure if trolling, or just really stupid.

Re:Repost

[mrogers]

Similarly, after LimeWire was shut down the brand was relaunched as a monthly subscription service for slowing your computer down and giving you viruses.

NAPSTER BAD

[ArhcAngel]

NAPSTER BAD

MP3 DOWNLOAD GOOD!

Re:NAPSTER BAD

[bennomatic]

Thanks for that second link. I didn't know that Lars had ever admitted that he and the boys were wrong about their stance on Napster.

The Italian Job

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess the guy from the The Italian Job can have the name: http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0006115/quotes

Re:The Italian Job

[Anonymous Coward]

lyle: And then he's just the media darling... He's on the cover of all the magazines, I should of been on the cover of Wired Magazine. You know what he said? He said he named it "Napster" because it was his nickname because of the nappy hair under the hat. But he, it's because I was NAPPING when he STOLE it from me! He didn't even graduate!
Handsome Rob: I think it's time to move on, don't you? They shut him down, I wish they would do the same to you.

Social network

[goldgin]

At least it will be remembered via "The social network". I was feeling quite old when my highschool students responded "napster?" while mentioning it in computing class until recently.

A punk snob?

[Anonymous Coward]

Forgive my doubts, but I can't imagine a drunk hobo punk being a music snob. Real music snobs listen to progressive (or worse, some random electronic subsubgenre noone has ever heard about).

Re:A punk snob?

[ackthpt]

Forgive my doubts, but I can't imagine a drunk hobo punk being a music snob. Real music snobs listen to progressive (or worse, some random electronic subsubgenre noone has ever heard about).

That's rather narrowminded. I personally know of at least one former musician who has an alcohol dependency problem and lives on the street. I'm certain he turns his nose up at certain "music" as it isn't his cuppa or has inferior instrumentation. He favors accoustic over electric guitar.

Re:A punk snob?

[Anonymous Coward]

(or worse, some random electronic subsubgenre noone has ever heard about).

That would be skweee.

Re:A punk snob?

[tripleevenfall]

That's where music snobs have gone today, to the acoustic emo pseudo dirge singer/songwriter Firstname Lastname of the week.

Bonus points for slicked hair, "vintage" glasses and greasy skinny jeans (the key is to look like you don't care what you look like whilst obsessing over it)

Re:A punk snob?

[Reasonable Facsimile]

How many hipsters does it take to change a light bulb?
It's a really obscure number, and you've probably never heard of it.

Good nite sweet prince.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether you loved it or hated it you have to admit that it changed the landscape of music and the internet. Good nite sweet prince.

Without Napster we'd still be using FTP

[betterunixthanunix]

People were downloading music long before Naptster...

Re:Without Napster we'd still be using FTP

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't talk about file sharing methods that aren't talked about. It's the first rule. Keep it to yourself.

Re:Without Napster we'd still be using FTP

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Napster made it accessible. FTP you had to use clunky aggregators, and usually you had to upload content first to get your download quota, so you have to wait while you upload pseudorandomdata.mp3 at 33.6kbps before downloading your file.

I have this strong feeling...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of Deja Vu...

Napster died long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

The company that is being shut down now shares only the name with the old Napster. The old Napster died long time ago.

Short history of digital music services:
1. Illegal stuff
Napster->Gnutella->eDonkey->Kazaa->Audiogalaxy->LimeWire->iMesh->BitTorrent->allofmp3.com->grooveshark

2. Legal stuff
mp3.com->eMusic->Pressplay->MusicNet->Listen.com->Rhapsody->Yahoo Music->iTunes->Amazon MP3->Zune->Pandora->Spotify->Rdio->Google Music

Re:Napster died long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW, I was a Napster subscriber mostly because of the $15/3 months plan where you got to keep 15 songs. Rhapsody doesn't offer that so I did not make the transition to Rhapsody.

I'm sick anyway of these corporate acquisitions where customers are being herded from one company to another with a worst deal.

Re:Napster died long time ago

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a trial of Rhapsody many moons ago. They only had a very few songs I was interested in, and at the time when you cancelled membership, the songs went away as well (I don't recall how it worked, but there must have been some tag on the files that phoned home and checked for an active account at that IP address).

I wouldn't be surprised if they still use that model.

There's Always: +4, Seditios

[Anonymous Coward]

W.A.S.T.E.

Yours In Novosibirsk,
K. Trout

I wonder

[kimvette]

I wonder if they will bring "ded kitty" back?

The first time Napster died:

http://news.dmusic.com/article/5385

Audiogalaxy........

[Anonymous Coward]

Before its' time...

https://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/6/21/171321/675

Everybody knows...

[Anonymous Coward]

...It was named napster by the lying thief that stole it from the original author while he was napping!

Y&uo Fail It..

[Anonymous Coward]

which allows lube is W1ped off

Taking all bets!

[MacGyver2210]

I am curious when we're going to see the story "All corporations in North America now owned by Exxon-Mobil-Time Warner-Comcast-Microsoft-Clear Channel-AT&T-Verizon-Bank of America". It's inevitable if someone doesn't stop the rampant "I'll just buy my competition" strategy.

Re:Taking all bets!

[Megane]

You forgot "all restaurants are Taco Bell".

Wait...

[CMYKjunkie]

Napster still existed in the first place?? I'm a huge nerd and seriously had no idea they were still around (in the legal form or otherwise). I can't be the only one so I'm feeling like whatever Rhapsody paid was too much!

With Napster I was buying CDs

[HalAtWork]

Actually it's thanks to Napster that I started buying CDs, before that I was listening to what my friends had and ripping the music I really liked. My friends' albums were fine, but now I could find stuff that suited my unique preferences and tastes without pretense. Radio only provided generic songs that were catchy but got old fast and had no real staying power. Napster was a way to easily listen to stuff neither my friends nor the radio could offer, but was even more suited to me. And I wanted more. So I would buy the full CDs of the artists I liked, their singles w/obscure b-sides, etc, I liked them so much I wanted to support them and collect their catalogs. I would never have found Quasi without Napster.

Thank you Lars, for napster.

[unity100]

Yea Lars as in Lars 'the yellow nightingale of cash' Ulrich. You bitched and moaned so much about NOT having enough millions over the countless millions you had and spearheaded the first crusade of the content monopolists against the internet in the persona of napster - so much that, it has become normal to do what you did.

thank you. shove your extra millions you still not have been able to get, up your ass. and no, your half assed apology and admittance, does not cut it.

its sad to remember that i once listened to 'and justice for all', enthusiastically.

Re:Thank you Lars, for napster.

[Reasonable Facsimile]

Will never forget this: http://mtv.mtvnimages.com/content/ontv/vma/2008/photo/flipbooks/vma-mayhem/VMA2000-Napster-founder-2363908-Getty.jpg?width=600

Re:Thank you Lars, for napster.

[CaseCrash]

Will never forget this: http://mtv.mtvnimages.com/content/ontv/vma/2008/photo/flipbooks/vma-mayhem/VMA2000-Napster-founder-2363908-Getty.jpg?width=600

That is hilarious, thank you!

I visit the local

[future assassin]

pawn shop, give the record company nothing and still contribute to my local economy PLUS i save HUGE $$$ that say in MY pocket.

WarFTP

[future assassin]

FTW!

hasn't been said yet...

[Anonymous Coward]

"You'll never shut down the *real* Napster"?

*sniff* Memories and nostalgia...

[cje]

When I was 17...
I downloaded very good tunes...
I downloaded very good tunes that I got through P2P
My name was Chuck D...
I stayed up downloading Queen...
When I was 17

Heh!

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll never shut down the REAL NAPSTER. :-)

Thanks a friggin' lot, Lars

[Lime Green Bowler]

You killed Napster, your reputation, and St. Anger's drum parts. The first two in the same tantrum. :)
(can't sue me, I used a smiley to cast doubt on whether this post was in jest or serious comment on how you screwed up)

I still prefer the Zune model...

[aapold]

even though my zune player is long dead, I keep my subscription going. I just sync them to my android phone these days, and re-sync when the license runs out. Originally I thought I would have to get a windows phone to do this, but it works fine through windows media player of all things.

"Easy Street Records" in Seattle

[bd580slashdot]

Here in Seattle we've got Easy Street records. Tons of new and used music, albums, CDs etc. They have a little stage and during the day they have a little cafe in the store with breakfast lunch type diner food but quality ingredients, local food. Bands play there (Pearl Jam). It's small, maybe 40x40 feet with a half loft. They play good music with an excellent sound system. The employees always know what's playing. They have listening stations with good headphones so you can listen before you buy, and eat at the same time. Graffiti is OK in one of the bathrooms. Dog water dish outside. There's more .... fuckin all around cool. I don't mind paying a bit more there.

The Problem With DRM

[semilemon]

From the Napster.ca FAQ regarding the shut-down:

Also, we strongly suggest that you back up all of your previously purchased and downloaded tracks because we will not be able to provide any customer support relating to them, including any further backup copies, after December 16, 2011. These downloads are DRM-encoded WMA files and can be backed up by burning them to audio CDs. Doing this will allow you access to your music on any CD player and generally have a maintenance free permanent copy. If you do not back up your purchased Napster music downloads by burning them to CD and you later change or reinstall your computer's operating system, have a system failure or experience DRM corruption, then the downloads will stop playing and you will permanently lose access to them.

Glad that DRM-free music downloads have become much more commonplace over the past few years. If I wanted to have CD-ROM backups of my music laying around, I would have went to the store and bought the CD in the first place.

saw that coming

[h3adjum]

Anyone remember Mininova? Napster was already defunct long ago... They're just annoucing that the body was found!

Aww,

[Anonymous Coward]

Bye bye, Crapster. RIP.