Brilliant program but get it while you can (Napster)

Member Name: thecoin

Product:	Napster
Date:	09/11/00 (76 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Can download near enough any track

Disadvantages: people cut you off at 99% of a download

Napster Iam sure you have all heard about but just incase you havn`t hears a brief description of it.

Essentially it is a program which can be downloaded from www.napster.com that allows you to search for tracks(even ones which havn`t been released)and then download them off other people whilst they can download tracks from you.

I had never heard of napster until last year when a friend of mine reccomended it to me.At first I was courtious of it,I was worried about how easy it was to get hacked whilst on it so I held back.I waited a while to see if I heard any reports of it and so proceeded to download it which on a 56k modem takes in the area of 20 minutes.Iam so glad I did!

Iam one of these people who has been so affected by it that I no longer buy CD`s.Why should I pay £3.99 for one song when I can download it for nothing.Its a joke to charge that much for a new CD when once they are out of the chart are sold for 50p and still make a profit.They have shot themselves in the foot in my opinion.They have upped and upped the price of Cd`s that much that people can no longer afford to buy them and now people have heard about napster they all rush to napster because its offering the same songs and near enough the same quality for nothing.

Tracks can be downloaded in different bitrates.The higher the bitrate the better the quality.The downside to having better quality is the better the quality the longer it takes to download because the files are larger normally 192kb file takes around 25mins whilst a 128kb takes around 15mins depending on length.

You can also interact with other users using the chat rooms.These I have found to be very useful as you can make new friends who you can add to your hotlist who can upload songs for you and you can check on each other to see what new tracks they have and download them.

I have found one problem with napster though.You have some idiots who find it funny to cut you off forcing
a transfer error at 98-99% meaning that you miss the last few seconds of the track and youve wasted 20 mins trying to download a track so you have to start over again.

Bands such as Metallica and Limp Bizkit have tryed closing napster.They claim that its affecting there record sales.I agree it is a little but there rich enough already that it wouldn`t make that much of a difference to them.They have millions of pounds they don`t consider what its like for your average everyday person to afford to buy there CD`s at the prices they are selling them for.The record companies are going to shoot themselves in the foot again if they start selling mp3`s online because if napster is still open theres going to be more mp3`s around for free download.The fact is even if napster does get closed down somebody will open up a new version of it in another name.Lets face it mp3 sites and programs will never get closed down no matter what people say because as soon as ones closed another will open.

Napster does offer upcoming bands the oppurtunity to launch there songs through the program and could be very useful to the music industry.

At the end of the day the bottom line is record companies have become to greedy and now they are paying for it.

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