I shall be sending this email to Time:
In reply to the above assuration in your article on file sharing, please could I make this VERY valid point:
a) FACT - Napster Started in 1999
b) FACT - CD Sales in 1999 and 2000 UP
c) FACT - Napster Removed "Pirate" MP3s in 2001
d) FACT - Napster "closing" massivly reduced MP3 downloads
e) FACT - CD Sales DROPPED in 2001
Napster was shutdown for the majority of last year. This was reflected by the DECLINE in CD sales and a massive decline in MP3 downloads
Napster itself was responsible for the GROWTH in CD sale during the previous two years (1999 and 2000). The quality of MP3 music is very low. Even what is claimed as "CD Quality" is actually no better than the quality of cassette, and is certainly vastly inferiour to FM radio. A CD-quality MP3 is litirally a 10th of the quality of a CD recording.
The free and easy availablity of MP3 songs to be downloaded at a decent speed allowed customers to "try before they buy". It introduced them to new bands whom they would never have heard of before. Then - confident that the artist was actually capable of making good music - customers bought their albums.
I'm an example of this form of marketing: before napster, I was very reticent to spend £15 on an album. At that time I had about 20 albums, of which only 5 were any good. The other 15 albums were crap - I'd heard one song by the artist on the radio, and bought their album expecting more of the same - but sadly that was usually not the case - the record company had robbed me of my money by portraying their wares as quality, when infact they were tripe.
Now I have a collection approaching 250 albums. Why? Because I've been able to listen to bands recommended to me by people on the Internet - when I've heard a good song I've been able to listen to other songs by the same artist to see if they're any good.
Since Napster has shut down, I've not bought many albums. Why? Because there's no way I'm going to pander to the record companies and be forced to buy masses their fraudulently marketed low-quality wares just to get the odd good album.
All the evidence points to the fact that I am not unique: as you stated in your article, CD sales have decreased since the demise of Napster. Sadly, it seems that your article has failed to draw the logical conclusion to these facts.
Best Regards,
Ryan
The throughput from RAM-RAM is on a totally different order of magnitude than HDD. The read-time alone makes RAM more "ecomonical" than HDD (at current memory costs).
If google were to switch to HDD, then they would need one copy of their entire DB for each search - which would mean thousands of copies of their DB.
With RAM they only need a few copies - making the total cost lower with RAM.
Slashdot Mirror
I shall be sending this email to Time: In reply to the above assuration in your article on file sharing, please could I make this VERY valid point: a) FACT - Napster Started in 1999 b) FACT - CD Sales in 1999 and 2000 UP c) FACT - Napster Removed "Pirate" MP3s in 2001 d) FACT - Napster "closing" massivly reduced MP3 downloads e) FACT - CD Sales DROPPED in 2001 Napster was shutdown for the majority of last year. This was reflected by the DECLINE in CD sales and a massive decline in MP3 downloads Napster itself was responsible for the GROWTH in CD sale during the previous two years (1999 and 2000). The quality of MP3 music is very low. Even what is claimed as "CD Quality" is actually no better than the quality of cassette, and is certainly vastly inferiour to FM radio. A CD-quality MP3 is litirally a 10th of the quality of a CD recording. The free and easy availablity of MP3 songs to be downloaded at a decent speed allowed customers to "try before they buy". It introduced them to new bands whom they would never have heard of before. Then - confident that the artist was actually capable of making good music - customers bought their albums. I'm an example of this form of marketing: before napster, I was very reticent to spend £15 on an album. At that time I had about 20 albums, of which only 5 were any good. The other 15 albums were crap - I'd heard one song by the artist on the radio, and bought their album expecting more of the same - but sadly that was usually not the case - the record company had robbed me of my money by portraying their wares as quality, when infact they were tripe. Now I have a collection approaching 250 albums. Why? Because I've been able to listen to bands recommended to me by people on the Internet - when I've heard a good song I've been able to listen to other songs by the same artist to see if they're any good. Since Napster has shut down, I've not bought many albums. Why? Because there's no way I'm going to pander to the record companies and be forced to buy masses their fraudulently marketed low-quality wares just to get the odd good album. All the evidence points to the fact that I am not unique: as you stated in your article, CD sales have decreased since the demise of Napster. Sadly, it seems that your article has failed to draw the logical conclusion to these facts. Best Regards, Ryan
The throughput from RAM-RAM is on a totally different order of magnitude than HDD. The read-time alone makes RAM more "ecomonical" than HDD (at current memory costs). If google were to switch to HDD, then they would need one copy of their entire DB for each search - which would mean thousands of copies of their DB. With RAM they only need a few copies - making the total cost lower with RAM.