It's official: Napster sucks. The RIAA's newest sticky fingers wants you to download.
posted by the fire you left me on Oct 29, 2003 - 30 comments

Napster re-launching on Wednesday as a pay-per-download service. Anyone see this coming?
posted by Ufez Jones on Oct 26, 2003 - 40 comments

iTunes 4 + iLeech = Napster. iTunes can stream songs over the internet right now. With iLeech or iTunesDL (direct download link, no info available) you can download files from other iTunes 4 users. With ShareiTunes and Spymac Music you can search for available iTunes libraries. Now you have access to hundreds of thousands of songs. Will this mean big trouble for Apple or were they planning for this?
posted by capndesign on May 14, 2003 - 14 comments

Justice for Consumers "The owners of the KaZaA file-sharing network are suing the movie and recording industries, claiming that they don't understand the digital age and are monopolizing entertainment." Quote from article by Associated Press. I don't about you but I'm sick and tired of big businesses writing all the new laws in this country. Now maybe the people can get some justice for a change.
posted by tljenson on Jan 28, 2003 - 21 comments

Hating Hilary. We've certainly heard a bit from Hilary Rosen, CEO of the RIAA. Love her, hate her or hate her more, this particular interview reveals (to me at least) a very different Hilary, a woman who is perhaps not the beast that her bosses expect her to be and the immovable technophobic distribution system and business model she represents forces her to be.

In fact, Rosen tried to steer the labels toward the online future long before they saw it coming. In the mid-'90s, Rosen brought [Esther] Dyson to a conference of music executives to brief them on how technology would transform their business. Dyson described for them the inevitability of digital delivery, an eventuality Rosen says she had begun to understand but wanted her bosses to hear from an outsider. But as Dyson spoke, the label executives became defensive, then furious. By all accounts, the meeting devolved into a shouting match.

the picture of her with an iPod says it all

"I finally convince the idiot record companies that they have to offer a product to compete with pirates, and now the publishers won't make a deal," she said, throwing up her hands. priceless.
posted by 11235813 on Jan 23, 2003 - 39 comments

Kazaa asks users to accept new terms and conditions when logging on. Anyone know of any hidden pitfalls to the t&c's? Am I going to get visits from the police?
posted by wibbler on Feb 4, 2002 - 15 comments

The New Napster Preview is up. Will you pay for this? I won't.
posted by deftone on Jan 2, 2002 - 35 comments

Napster refuses to die, promises viable business model which you can now download for free. Someone tell these people that the dot-com "I've got no way of paying you anything other than stock options" boom is over. If I have to pay for the service of downloading software from a central server, the P2P model is useless. Morons.
posted by rev- on Aug 22, 2001 - 3 comments

'Download Beta 10.3 now' was the message that greeted me as i logged on for old times sake and the urge to verify some speculation i'd heard 'You must upgrade your client at http://www.napster.com. * Disconnected from server! (Thu Jun 28 17:22:50 2001) * Unable to reconnect to server! (Thu Jun 28 17:22:50 2001)' shouted my screen in nasty red text. The exclamation marks were the icing on the cake. It seemed my v2.0 BETA 6 just didn't kick it anymore. Left out in the cold! It was like being kicked from an irc channel, except here i had been N-lined!. [more..]
posted by Kino on Jun 28, 2001 - 50 comments

Songbird is billed as a Napster anti-piracy tool. It's job is supposedly for an artist to see the many title variations of their material as documentation for copyright violations. I don't know if this is truly a thinly-veiled claim of legitimacy or whether the author is just being earnest - but because it shows what users have what variations, I'm finding it a great tool to track down songs that I couldn't find before because of Napster's filtering and not necessarily being able to think of every possible variation...Neato.
posted by DiplomaticImmunity on May 10, 2001 - 7 comments

Judge orders Napster to eliminate copyright songs. I want to see the lists of songs that the record companies must provide.
posted by hijinx on Mar 6, 2001 - 14 comments

Aimster fights back... Not sure this is legal but it looks like some people have already found a way to bypass the napster filters...
posted by TNLNYC on Mar 5, 2001 - 9 comments

Bertelsmann, Napster to Develop Music Service
As part of this arrangement, BMG will be providing a loan to Napster, with a warrant to acquire some of Napster's equity.

If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em!
posted by peterme on Oct 31, 2000 - 5 comments

Napster may be down, but pandora's out of the box, baby. Get OpenNap as soon as you can (if anyone finds a link to OpenNap, by all means post the URL)
posted by mathowie on Jul 26, 2000 - 35 comments

Motley Crue ROCKS man! Okay so maybe they're just as old and washed up as Metallica, but the diff here is that Motley Crue supports the idea of their fans downloading MP3s of their music via Napster and Metallica is just trying to get cheap publicity by screwing their own fans. Personally, I listen to bands like these and I made fun of groups like Metallica and Motley Crue back when I was in high school and everybody else thought they were cool, but I'll stop badmouthing Crue for the rest of my life. I might even try to appreciate their music. Metallica still sucks though.
posted by ZachsMind on Jul 3, 2000 - 3 comments

Napster's screwed: Internal NapsterCo email and documents show that they intended to be a copyright-infringing pirate haven from the very beginning. Should have used PGP, kids!
posted by aaron on Jun 13, 2000 - 5 comments

Hey Napster fans! Pull your pants up, turn your hat around and get a job. "We'll put all the albums we can on the Internet for free download and to hell with the record companies. See how they'll like that! I know this feels good but they're throwing the baby out with the bath water."
posted by Mick on Jun 12, 2000 - 31 comments

How to beat the Napster ban. Seems they're pulling some sly tricks with the registry.
posted by Steven Den Beste on May 12, 2000 - 0 comments

Uhoh! Leggo my napster! So I just tried to load up Napster, and it told me that my connection to the server was refused. None of the people I've talked to have been able to get on either. Could this be the end of Napster? Killed in the night while nobody was watching? The site doesn't say anything, but grrrr, I want my pirated music!
posted by benbrown on May 6, 2000 - 14 comments

Napster users are named in the latest battle Some have admitted to being a criminal while others say who cares? Metallica sure doesn't seem like it is going to back down. The article says Metallica is scheduled to chat with fans online at the Artistsdirect.com Web site to explain its fight against Napster. So is any action going to be taken against the fans who want the music?
posted by brent on May 1, 2000 - 4 comments

Another music artist that doesn't get it: Dr. Dre. I knew the Metallica thing could start a rash of followers, hopefully this isn't a trend. Why is it so difficult for artists to see that fans trading their music is a good thing? (including better sales of discs thanks to the people hearing the mp3's and better concert sales from fans buying tickets to see them live)
posted by mathowie on Apr 19, 2000 - 49 comments

Indiana University Bans use of Napster It appears that Indiana University has banned the use of Napster recently. Apparently it was accounting for 50% of IU's Internet traffic. Officials are sighting bandwidth as the reason for the ban. I wonder how many schools will follow suit this semester.
posted by fil! on Feb 14, 2000 - 7 comments

If you haven't heard of Napster yet, check it out. This is a killer tool, a combination mp3 player and file transfer client/server. While you play mp3s, other users can download songs from your library, while you do the same from their libraries. This is a great idea but must be a nightmare for the recording industry. This could be a really cool community tool, if everyone is generous with their music.
posted by mathowie on Oct 29, 1999 - 1 comment