Remember Napster? Well, it's returned to its roots and is
once again offering free music via a revamped
ad based web-site. But according to their
FAQ, you can only listen to any given song up to 5 times before you'll be asked to pay for it. Even though this equates to roughly 10 million free plays, in an age where BitTorrent is king, will this pay off for the company? Some say
no, as the catches that come with this new system are just too many. But (for the moment at least) the share market is saying
yes.
posted by Effigy2000
on May 1, 2006 -
38 comments
How To Hack the New Napster. Back in the day Shawn Fannings little dealie brought the world of free file sharing to the mainstream, now with the aid of Winamp and a few clever configurations, one can relive the past.
via stereogum
posted by tsarfan
on Feb 16, 2005 -
60 comments
Kazaa to RIAA; "Catch us if you can!" Although I was initially skeptical, it seems as though Kazaa's decentralized system is proving to be a problem for the RIAA. With Napster, it seemed like they caved almost immediately. What I'm wondering is, does Kazaa actually have a change at establishing some sort of favourable ruling concerning file-trading / P2P? I know it's probably too early to tell, but speculation makes for great conversation some times.
posted by Dark Messiah
on Sep 25, 2002 -
15 comments
The War Against MP3? Hilary Rosen, everyone's favourite defender of record company hegemony, outlines her new strategy ("Help me help you.") in an email leaked to
FuckedCompany. Interestingly, it's aimed at beating the dastardly hackers at their own game, with tactics such as "Spoofing and/or interdiction methods for existing peer to peers". Signs of desparation on the part of the RIAA, or should people be making the most of the second-generation Napster clones while they have a chance?
posted by holgate
on Oct 3, 2001 -
34 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
Goose-killers suddenly notice absence of golden eggs? With Napster neutralised, the distributed alternatives thriving, and their commercial schemes mired in technological and political difficulties, many record industry execs are quietly wishing they'd done things differently. Should we regret the lost opportunity, or celebrate it as a self-inflicted step towards breaking the stranglehold of the major labels?
posted by holgate
on Jul 23, 2001 -
19 comments
Disney's Michael Eisner on what to do about all those kids who use Napster:
Arrest and prosecute the little SOBs. I know I'd sleep better at night knowing that those devious conspiratorial 11-year-olds were behind bars. [second item]
posted by aaron
on Mar 16, 2001 -
15 comments
AngryCoffee.com An interesting web interface for searching and downloading mp3s floating around on the
MyNapster and
OpenNap networks (Napster has currently shut them out of their network). But if everyone starts using a browser interface like this (and aren't logged into a Napster-like client) who's going to be serving the files in the first place?
posted by hit-or-miss
on Jul 30, 2000 -
2 comments
This just in: Napster's injunction to shut down tonight at midnight has been stayed (I'll add a url to a story when CNN writes it - BTW, how crazy is it that the napster news gets top level precedence as breaking news on a site as big as CNN?
screenshot)
posted by mathowie
on Jul 28, 2000 -
19 comments
Motley disses Metallica Mister Sixx and pals give their response to Lars' crew, on the whole mp3/napster issue. Sounds like 2 groups of people are benefitting from all these lawsuits, lawyers and flash-cartoonists...
posted by nomisxid
on May 31, 2000 -
4 comments
(No link, but at least it's on topic :-)
Submitted for your approval: the recording industry has shot themselves in the head, forcing users to switch from Napster, which at least gave them a mechanism to charge people who wanted to pay, to the decentralized approach of Gnutella, et al, which makes that completely impossible. Opinions?
posted by baylink
on May 9, 2000 -
16 comments
And in other news, Indiana University
announced today that they're developing jointly with
Napster a solution to the congestion problem the MP3-sharing program can cause (which has led to Napster being blocked by campuses nationwide). Access to Napster will be reinstated on campus for a two-week period starting March 25 to test this new method. This new method will soon be made available for web developers at
http://bestpath.iu.edu. Yippee. I get to download
*NSync tunes again.
posted by hit-or-miss
on Mar 22, 2000 -
1 comment
Contrary to what the record industry thinks, mp3s sell CDs. Today I bought "
Irish Drinking Songs" after hearing "Water is Alright in Tay" and "Beer, Beer, Beer" mp3s I downloaded from
Napster. Hearing the beer song brought back a distinct memory. I recall hearing it blaring from a jukebox and singing along with 50 strangers at an Irish pub in San Francisco on New Year's Eve, 1998.
posted by mathowie
on Jan 26, 2000 -
4 comments
