| Product: |
Napster |
| Date: |
09/12/00 (33 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Great MP3 search engine
Disadvantages: Fails to download far too often
The thing with Napster is that it's a great idea - one of the ebst to come out of the Net so far. By creating a virtual community sharing the MP3 files they have on their own computers, Napster has created the biggest music database imaginable.
Whic is fine - you want that rare Smiths bootleg or a Patti Smith out-take and all you have to do is type in the track name, wait a minute or so and up pops a wee list of all the users from whom you can download it.
And then it all falls down.
The problem with Napster is in the actual downloading of the tracks. At least half the time I've used it I've spent five or so minutes downloading a track, only to get a transfer error and have the download aborted. You still have the part you have downloaded on your hard drive, but since there's obviously no "resume" option, if you want the whole thing you have to start from scratch again.
I suppose I may just be over-choosy - it is free (for the moment) software and it is an efficient way to actually find specific MP3s. But I won't be paying for it, unless they really work on fixing the problems with downloading.
One last thing, just to add my tuppence worth to the copyright argument. I've only ever used Napster to get single tracks - mainly old songs I used to like (David Bowie and Bing Crosby doing "Little Drummer Boy" fro instance) or, having heard a track I liked on the radio, other songs by the same artist to see if it's worth buying the CD. I find it hard to belief that the record companies could have any problem with that.
In any case, Napster is not a good way to download an entire album for you to burn into a CD. Apart from the download problems I've already mentioned, there is the matter of finding all the tracks for an entire album, spending the time downloading them (especially in the UK where you pay for the phonebills) and then getting the track order right.
It would be far easier just to borrow the CD from a friend and copy it.
Summary:
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