Living on borrowed time?(UPDATED) (Napster)

Member Name: rob_writer

Product:	Napster
Date:	12/12/00 (229 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Was a great service

Disadvantages: It is no more

UPDATES AT BOTTOM

Napster has been in existence for a couple of years now. Its premise is simple, each user has a library of songs which other users can download, in effect creating a massive MP3 library containing almost every song in existence. The controversy comes from the fact that users can download tracks from any artist, ie. ones that are subject to copyright laws. The music industry claims this will damage sales, and Napster had been taken to court by a number of large record companies. At around the same time as Napster sprung up a number of websites were created that allowed tracks to be downloaded, these sites subsequently were closed down or forced to change the way they operate. The reason Napster has survived so far is due to the fact that it can argue that it is the users who are breaking copyright laws, Napster themselves only provide a service. On the brink of collapse many times Napster has so far always received a reprieve. A judge ruled to allow Napster to stay operational while the cases against are heard, at least the old adage 'Innocent until proven guilty' still holds true.

Napster is used primarily for the swapping of MP3 files. These files use compression to achieve near CD quality but at a fraction of the size. A CD that contains 600Mb of music will only take up around 50Mb in MP3 format. MP3's work by cutting out all the sounds beyond our range of hearing, so should in theory sound no different to a CD. In reality quality depends on the sampling rate. On Napster people use three main types of MP3 quality, 96Kb/s which while being of worse quality than CD's has the advantage of being small. 128kb/s is the normal quality providing music which is virtually undistinguishable from a CD. Anything above this bit rate does increase the quality but also the size of the file. A 56K modem can theoretically transfer data at around 7k per second, but in reality the most that can be expected is a constant 5.5K/s max
. This leads to an average MP3 taking between 10 and 20 mins to download. It is always best to try to download from a user with a fast modem, this means a T1, T2, T3, DSL or cable modem. Anything less than this will probably reduce the speed of the transfer.

So is Napster illegal or not? Well depending on what sources you listen to the answers vary. Some people say it is illegal to make music available for upload, other say it is illegal to download. I guess the bottom line is no one is really sure, it's like recording CD's on to tape but on a much larger scale.

Amongst the music industry there have also been varied feelings towards Napster. Some bands agree with napster, others are strongly against it. The Offspring planned to let their latest album, 'Conspiracy of One', be available for free download from Napster. This idea was soon struck on the head by their record company, a clear indication of who calls the shots in the modern day music industry.

The next question to ask is will Napster actually harm sales. In the short term sales have actually improved, but it is the general feeling that this will not last as MP3's become more widespread. With the mass availability of CD writers and photo realistic printers anyone can relatively cheaply do a good job of recreating an album complete with covers, inlay etc. Sites such as CD Cover Central provide people with the covers for CD's. Many people are content with this set up and create good quality CD's. Personally I still prefer to buy the CD, I use Napster mainly to listen to new bands and decide if I should buy their CD, or to get a collection of stand out tracks which I wouldn't be able to purchase elsewhere.

On a more disturbing note it does make CD piracy much more easy, by pirates I mean the people you see at Sunday Markets selling cheap copied CD's. It's one thing making a CD for yourself, but entirely another to sell them to others.


Napster recently signed a deal with BGM which means that in the long run Napster plan to introduce a subscription fee to use the service. Whether this was somply a ploy by Napster to stay operational for as long as possible waits to be seen, but don't be suprised to see Napster closes down one day, or changes the way that it works. I fail to see however that a deal with one record company can allow Napster to keep its whole service open, surely the other record labels won't be happy.

Whatever happens in the future Napster has revolutionised music and the way in which we use the net, and people are going to think twice before they pay to download music. The general trend is that things get cheaper over time, so I wouldn't imagine people will be happy to start to pay to use Napster. If Napster does close I wouldn't be suprised to see a similar rival service spring up its place.

UPDATE

Yesterday (02/01/01) Napster signed a deal with another, German, record label. They agreed to allow napster to continue to distribute their music once a subscription service was introduced.

As much as we don't want it, it does now seem inevitable that Napster will soon start to charge for use of it's service.

The problem is, who will actually bother? People like things to become free after first paying for them (ie. unmetered net access) but no one likes to pay for something they used to get for free.

My advice is to use Napster as much as you can while its still open, because no one knows how much longer it will last in its current form.

UPDATE (16/01/01)

Napster still seems to be going, with the release of two new versions in quick succession, first Beta 8 then Beta 9.

Beta 8 was reportedly filled with bugs, although I never even got round to downloading it before beta 9 came around. Beta 9 is better, with few nice changes. Worth the upgrade, we may aswell get the most out
of Napster while its still free!!

UPDATE (30.01.01)


Well its official, Napster have released a statement saying that they plan to introduce a subscription service. The subscription service is said to start 'early summer' which I would guess would be around June or July.

Whether there will still a free side to Napster remains to be seen.

One ray of hope however, I have heard news that it may be possible for other people to set up Napster servers, and using a program called Napigator you can choose to connect to one of these servers rather than the real Napster servers.

If this will ever come to light remains to be seen, but I think we'll all agree Napster has been a great flagship for the net, and rather like Sony with the Playstaion, it has succeeded in making the web cool.

Just a shame it couldn't continue in its existing form!

UPDATE 16.02.01
---------------

This week Napster lost its long running battle. Although not yet forced to close down the court ruled Napster must prevent its users from downloading copyrighted material. To all intents and purposes this would constitute the end of Napster as we know it.

At the moment Napster seems to be in a state of limbo, although the service is still running it seems inevitable that it now will close, the question has become when?

Make the most of it while you can!

UPDATE 28.02.01
---------------

The future of Napster looks grim.

Napster planned to offer money to the record industry, millions over the next three years, to allow them to continue. To recoup this money Napster would introduce a subscription fee.

However, the record industry seems set to reject this offer, they claim they are owned even more in lost revenue.

Without the co-operation of the music industry Napster will fail, so heres hoping!

UPDATE 04.03.01
---------------
r>After their court case Napster have decided to volutarily ban the swapping of copyrighted music, so they have introduced a filter which blocks out all copyrighted songs. I have tried, and while not 100% effective there is a lot of music that is not available, and this will increase with time.

It seems that we may never see Napster again in its free form, and it is looking increasingly doubtful that it will ever introduce a subscription service. I hope I am wrong, but I doubt it.

Napster is dead, long live Napster.