|
check this article out on napster
|
View this Thread in Original format
| Mark |
this article was found on http://www.vancouverprovince.com
Napster deal means end of free music
By summer you'll be forced to pay fees to download tunes Shane McCune The Province; with News Services
National Post / Joshua Wasserman uses Napster to download music into his home computer over the Internet.
Time is running out for free music from Napster.
Starting in June or July, you'll have to "upload" a subscription fee before you can download music from the popular website.
"We carried out market research among 20,000 Napster users. The willingness to pay is given," Bertelsmann AG chairman Thomas Middelhoff said yesterday.
The German media company owns BMG, which signed a $50-million deal with Napster to develop a fee-based system. In exchange, BMG dropped its copyright-infringement lawsuit against the Internet service last October.
So far the subscription service will offer only songs by BMG artists, but Napster is in talks to enlist other record companies, including Sony, EMI Group, Warner Music and Universal.
The announcement may please some music publishers and artists such as Metallica, who consider "free" downloads theft.
But it remains to be seen whether Napster users -- including 2.8 million Canadians, according to a recent survey -- will pay the still-undetermined subscription fee or simply switch to other free music sources, such as Gnutella, Scour, MP3.com, Aimster and news groups.
Kevin Kane, co-frontman of Vancouver's Grapes of Wrath, believes Napster should offer two zones -- free and fee.
"If you want to download songs off the new Grapes of Wrath record, maybe there would be two songs available in the free zone and the rest in the paid zone," said Kane, an avid Napster user.
Even members of The Tragically Hip -- whose latest disc, Music@Work, was leaked on the Internet before its official release -- are not keen on Napster's plan.
"To clip the wings of the free interchange of creative and musical ideas over the Web is not a positive thing," said bassist Gord Sinclair.
Hugh Roberts, music department manager at A&B Sound in downtown Vancouver, said it's impossible to determine Napster's role in the recent slump in North American CD sales, let alone the consequences of the subscription scheme.
"I don't think it's Napster that's doing anything horrible to music," he said yesterday. "It's just been a lousy couple of years for music."
Jack Schuller is president of Vancouver's Festival Distribution, a small independent specializing in folk and roots music. He said free downloads haven't hurt his artists that much, and subscription fees aren't likely to help them.
"The music that we distribute is more album-oriented," so fans aren't as likely to download single songs, he said. But he added that the people hurt most by digital pirating -- small-time songwriters who depend on royalties from CD sales -- probably won't benefit from Napster revenues as much as big stars like Bryan Adams.
"The Other Issue Is . . . People Getting the Idea That Intellectual Property Has No Value," Schuller Said. "That Is the Core of the Thing That Makes Me Uncomfortable With Napster." |
|
|
| Blik |
| I have to say that really sucks |
|
|
| Mark |
| yeah i know that would suck. especially since they would probably only have BMG music in there and i don't think they include trance. so no more live sets and such to download. i hope scour will be back soon with no fees attached. |
|
|
| mizzuno |
You guys are all forgetting one thing....Napigator and open nap servers which are not controlled by napster...hopefully these guys won't threaten(yeah right) these independent servers with litigation..but i'm sure the open nap servers and all the independent napster servers will be up and running we're just gonna have to use napigator...
I would not advise upgrading to any further releases of the napster client..
Mizzzz
|
|
|
| biznology |
| No don't upgrade, and honestly I really couldn't care less if napster disappeared off the face of the earth today. There will ALWAYS we another way to work around napster. I rarely use it now. One word - Hotline. peez. |
|
|
| mizzuno |
hey biz u might want to try a program called bearshare..i know it sounds lame but it was built on the gnutella client..and it actually works very well...
Mizzz |
|
|
| hircos |
found this over at the winamp forums
| quote: | Originally posted by a-arse
I was on napster today and this was said by a 'napster representive':
There is going to be a Napster online store. You can d/l entire albums by subscription basis. The ability to share amongst one another will not change. You will pay a subscription amount if you want the added fuctionality of getting licensed software from our distributers. |
My conjecture is the untold part is probably:
Napster isn't responsible for enforcing copyright issues. If the copyright holder wants to stop the user from trading the content, they complain to Napster and the user gets banned.
The fact remains that programs like MediaEnforcer that are used to collect the information for banning users are bots prohibited by the Napster TOS.
The list of artists whose tunes will get you banned will probably grow much larger.
Artists who use services like copyright.net seem to hide from the ire of banned users and a boycott of their songs by using a third party to do the dirty work of the banning.
This new tactic may help shield the artist from boycott and fan ire, but sustains the objectionable trade of the artists material by hiding this objection from the Napster Community.
Again, just my opinion.
|
|
|
| agi |
um what ? ok you lost me after about the first line. Anyway i just think that the whole charging a subscription fee is ed up, i can understand it, but theres ways around it i'm sure. p.s. why are people suggesting to not get new versions of napster ?
Peace
|
|
|
| Mark |
| i guess if we had newer versions of napster they can easily stop us from sharing/downloading music with their program if we don't pay. |
|
|
| Swamper |
New versions of the software might have certain functions programmed in to limit your connections to servers or other stuff.. I'm not sure if any of those OpenNap programs use any of the napster libraries to access anything but that may be one factor too..
...I rarely ever upgrade a version of something unless there's a feature in it that makes it worthwhile.... I'm still running a version of mIRC that's 3 years old, an ICQ from 1999 and a text file viewer from 1994 :)
ICQ is classic of how software becomes bloatware -- keep on adding tons of useless, crappy features and in the end reducing functionality and making the overall product a friggin memory hog.
...There are pros & cons to Napster becoming subscription-based... I won't sign up because I know the content on there will be 99% crap - none of the stuff most of us want...
|
|
|
| hircos |
well the opennap server software is based on the napster protocol but it also has links with the irc server software too.
the people who made opennap have said they arnt sure how napster link there servers they've tried running various programs and its still a mystery.
to run your own napster server its one of the easiest things to do i can reinstall mine in less than 15 mins you dont need a static ip or anything just patience it can begood and it can be crap but aint everything in life.
napster are struggling to keep there user database especially at there forums because theres been a few pleas from them to us on a diff. forum asking what it would take to get people back.
1 thing napster has to remember like the music industry the fans or users will say when it should end. respect the users, they will get more dont give a and neither will there users |
|
|
|
|
