Somebody Please Help Me! (Napster)

Name: jailbreakted

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Product:	Napster
Date:	24.12.00 (143 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free, You can get all those songs you have always wanted, Easy to win

Disadvantages: I'm stumped for the moment with it

Normally I would have given Napster a higher rating (5 out of 5). However, due to a recent problem I have encountered with Napster, my opinion of it has changed somewhat.

About a month ago I logged into Napster as per usual, only to find the message 'Access denied: Infringement Law- Sony_Music/Rage'. i didn't know what was going on and was really p***** to find that I could not get into the interface to download songs or listen to the songs in my library. I was informed that I would have to write out a form apologising for the fact that I had three of Rage Against the Machine's new songs in my library and that i had been blocked because Sony are claiming that people like me are infringing some law.

The reason why I am telling you this is because I still cannot get back into Napster, despite following the instructions that Napster gave me. I e- mailed them my apology about 30 days ago but my problem still has not been rectified, despite thje fact that Napster told me that it would be fixed in 14 days. If anyone that is reading this opinion could has suffered with the same problem, could you please leave a comment telling me how to fix it. Since I encountered it, I have tried deleting Napster and installing it again, but it just says 'Port ???? already in use!' and I have tried using some alternatives such as Scour.com and iMesh.com but they are all pathetic in contrast. PLEASE HELP ME!!!!

Anyway, to business. MP3s are a computer person's best friend. They are high-quality and they are small (three to six megabytes compared to eighty megabytes for a WAVE file, thus not requiring lots of bandwidth). As a result, people trade them back and forth, often with little regard for copyright and anti-piracy legislation.

A software and hardware industry has grown up around MP3s - WinAmp, Diamond's Rio, Real Network's encoder are all examples.

That's all well and good for creating and listening
to MP3s, but getting and giving MP3s has always been an issue. Up until now, FTP sites (and the occasional web site) were the best way to grow your collection. This is not very convenient:

The clever people at Napster have changed all this in a fundamental, revolutionary way.

The premise is simple - by running Napster, you provide your MP3s to other people running Napster. Thus, you become FTP server and client at the same time. People can download from your collection just as you can download from theirs. Instead of a few dozen FTP sites servicing tens of thousands of people, there are now tens of thousands of sites.

You find those cherished MP3s by searching by artist or song title. You can also specify the quality of the MP3 (when an MP3 is created, the quality of the MP3 is specified - the better the quality, the better the sound, the bigger the file), the speed of the site offering the MP3, and how good the connection is to that site.

I've been amazed at what I could find by running Napster. Music I've never found on ratio FTP sites is now quickly found and downloaded. There are usually over two hundred thousand MP3s available (almost a terabyte of music).

Napster also has a basic MP3 player built in to sample your new songs (no replacement for WinAmp, however). Chatting with people in music-related forums is also available, though I've never tried it. There are other features such as Instant Messages and hot Lists.

Napster is currently free. They are also being sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for up to $100,000 per song transferred - the same folks that tried (and failed) to prevent the Diamond Rio from being sold. They may have a better case with this one, so get and use Napster quick just in case.

Connecting to the Napster server can also be difficult (the server holds the database of all MP3s available). It can take at least a couple times if they are bu
sy.

Those are pretty minor problems, however, considering the usefulness of this product. If you like MP3s, you'll love Napster.


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UPDATE
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I now have fixed my problem with Napster. However, I had to fix it illegally as Napster never replied to my letter. If you have encountered the same problem as me, e- mail me at a_mcilwaine@hotmail.com and I'll give you instructions on how to 'unban' yourself.

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