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Napster Going to Subscriptions 231

Posted by CmdrTaco from the is-the-lawsuit-dropped-already? dept.
An amazing number of readers submitted links to various sources discussing that napster will now be subscription based. This follows an agreement with BMG. As Hemos said before, conceptually this is fine, but it'll be interesting to see how its implemented, and what they charge.
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Napster Going to Subscriptions More

Napster Going to Subscriptions

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  • All these media pundits using phrases like "killer app" and the "next best thing to hit the net," I have to wonder that if Napster switches to a subscription service, how many people will use it?

    For me, the allure of Napster was free and anonymous access (although agreeably, anonymous is highly relative), but with them charging a subscription fee, no matter what the cost, you are going to have to relinquish personally identifiable information. You may say that this is all good and fine, because now the record companies work "together" with Napster, but I think it'll be a cold day in Hell before you see every record label willing to work with Napster.

    Until that day comes, then any information you submit could just as well be subpoened by some lawsuit-happy label, whether it be one of the "Big 5" or some small indie label that you downloaded one song from.

    On the flip side, I suppose it's good to see these labels realizing that they cannot stop what Napster has started.
  • One thing's for sure, I'm not going to pay to offer files up off of my own darn computer. If they do make me pay, they'd better start offering up files of their own. the way I pay for napster service now is to give back to the comunity in the form of letting people download music that I've downloaded from people with the same philosophy as me. if they're going to go to a 'pay the fat cats' system, it better better be the fat cat's bandwidth that I'm sucking off of when I download a rare Fila Brazillia remix.

    in short, they make me pay, I share nothing
    --

  • An artless society that lives on theft and dissrespect is not who I desire to write and perform music for.I find the napsterites to be just another symptom of a society that no longer values personal responsibility or creativity.

    When people expect a handout or as the old pick-pockets of old used to say a light fingered touch to be the source of compensation then eventually the theif will get what he or she deserves for the oft' picked pocket soon is empty.

    Just because something can be stolen does not mean that there always be something there to steal. As a musician I am becoming less and less interested in offering myself and my work: yes my intelectual property up to the wolves.

    If the theives would try to create they would have less time to steal and that would be good for all of us and maybe the value of creativity would not be dinigrated as it is now.

    --

  • Did anyone else not see this?

    BMG will begin distributing their artists' work on pay-Napster. They will collect income (sounds like monthly subscription). OK, no problems here.

    Napster will still have a free service, all right. It'll have unwatermarked mp3s on it, all right. I dare you to get anything other than 15- to 30-second clips of "popular" tracks from it though. All inspired, of course, by fair use.

    It'll be a shame to see Napster go.
  • what happens when we have to pay for services like, irc, ftp.cdrom.com, /. ? granted, i pay my isp monthly, but the internet is getting WAY to commercial... granted, websites must operate, but i don't like all the banner ads i see, on any page. i actually like to firewall them out, and if i get off my butt, get a plug-in for ie to stop all images of the default banner-ad size... but, how much is anyone willing to pay for napster? the great thing about it was it was free, and easy, now we have to hassle with membership fees... plus there's things to figure out like bandwidth, time, files shared, etc i think you should have to pay the guy who shares it, that would be neat, i would make a killing off of that, but that's unfair to everyone. also, if i have to pay for something, being as broke as i am, i'm NOT gonna do it. i'd rather just be just as broke as i am now, and not be more broke :) i hope/think there's ALOT more people out there like me, who don't like wasting money, and won't go on napster... hence less people on napster hence alot less mp3's .. hence a dying napster
  • hur hur, yeah, and then they jizzed
  • Oh well, Indiana University cut off my access to Napster here at work anyways and had to go the OpenNap route. Maybe I'll just do the same at home as well.

    Precisely. Or if that doesn't float your boat, Mojo, Scour, or Gnutella. P2P isn't dead; one company without a business model is getting sued by an entire industry and - surprise! - they're selling out. It kind of had to happen. Now let's focus on some of these open services who have no central server operator to get sued. That will be a much more interesting legal precedent, I think. And regardless which way it goes, free music swapping for a long time to come for all the valid purposes you've mentioned.

  • > I would hope that if I am paying a fee for this new service, then I will be guaranteed to find a high quality recording of the songs I am looking for.
    > This means BMG/Napster needs to set up some big honking file servers of their own for me to use.

    Get real. This is BMG we're talking about here. Odds are good they won't have anything that you're looking for in their catalog. They are one record label out of thousands - and though they might be big, they still only carry perhaps 10% of the available titles at most.

    Even if you listen to purely popular music, odds are good their catalog is going to be totally insufficient.

    -dentin

  • 1. I wouldn't pay money for recordings of the quality that many of the things I download for free from Napster. For free, they're OK, but not for pay.

    What do the independent artists do? Some of them depend on Napster to get their music to the public, and they expect it to be free. Will Napster and the music industry give them a cut?

  • Not Gnutell, Freenet! [sourceforge.net]
  • "Napster totally bent over and took it up the ass here."

    yeah, and then they squatted over their user-base and expelled the ejaculate.
  • You are a moron. I don't know how else to break it to you, but the fact that the record companies are thieves does not justify you stealing from both the companies and the artists.
  • a decent encoder like Fraunhofer Professional at 128

    Nice.

  • Here's a concept, publish shorter versions of songs suitable for public consumption to advertise the longer pay-per-download or CD album versions. They could call it the single. They just need to come up with a scheme for a "flip side."

    ----------------------
  • BMG is involved in other online music sales schemes

    I was not aware of this. Got any links?

  • Well, the last time I used Napster, it was nearly impossible to find anything other than Britney Spears or Puff Daddy. How Napster could survive on subscriptions when most of their clients are probably 12-year old MTV-boppers, I'll never know.

    A shared FTP would allow you and your friends in Germany to share your desired types of music much easier.

    Also, I think that a group of friends sharing music on a private FTP server falls closer into the guides of 'fair use' than anything else.
    ---
    seumas.com

  • Cool! Now I can pay for music... Pretty soon, due to profit worries, Napster will need to raise their prices, going to a pay-for-song format. Then one day, I may be able to buy a whole CD from Napster for only $19.95 and get it shipped from BMG along with lots of extra DEALS just for me! I can't wait!!

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=
  • Yeah, well, I'd stick to private FTP servers and small groups of friends with music to share, thank you. Better quality, better choice, more reliable, less cut-off files and no bandwidth issues.

    It's rare that one finds an item on Napster that they couldn't find from a friend they already have. Napster just made it easier for people who don't have friends or connections to still get lots of free music.
    ---
    seumas.com

  • BMG (Score:5)

    by atrowe ( 209484 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @08:51AM (#657738)
    Isn't BMG the one with the mail-order music club?

    Does this mean that if I don't send back my reply card each month, my computer will automatically download songs I don't like?

  • While I understand your concern, there are things that you can do. Note the millenial craze for "branding", your music is a BRAND, do you have to make the money from SELLING your music, would you be happy if you could make the same or more by giving away your music and making money off branded T-shirts, live gigs (public or private), TV spots, why not be the first "Spokes-musician" for a company? You see the guy selling shoes can only sell his shoes, you are a brand, a lifestyle, a movement, a politics, a philosophy, and so is every other artist and musician. Now get off your ass and lets see what you can do, success and failure are unimportant, just do something interesting, something to spark that within us, do it now.
  • Yeah, there are huge "how's" involved in this situation... Flat fee or per song? I'd sign up for unlimited access to BMG's library for $20/month. But I think we all know that's not going to happen, unless BMG is feeling awfully feisty.

  • I'd be perfectly happy paying $1 per song if I get the added convenience of always being able to find what I'm looking for, getting a consistent quality with no cut-off songs with off-beat bitrates and bad volume settings, and with consistently and correctly labeled titles. No problem at all, and I would probably choose these over any free choice available. I'd much rather download them from a T3 that's always there, not being cut off because somebody turns off their computer. However, essential would be that any new scheme doesn't cut me off from picking up stuff from other folks that I otherwise couldn't find. I.e. it would be totally unacceptable if the choices got limited to what the record companies would like to sell. I would want to still be able to pick up Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio shows from somebody who has recorded and collected them, even if no record company has CDs with them in their catalog.
  • www.edonkey2000.com A free Napster alternative, the server piece is available as well as the client. Linux versions are also available.
  • Glad I didn't burn up my week's picks on Pud's board before I read this. They're dead meat.

    http://www.fuckedcompany.com
  • I realize that the court decision could be as limited as "Napster's an ISP, they can't be liable". But as I mentioned, Napster's defence is the non-commercial trading aspect. If the judges that handle this case have enough technological foresight, they might go as far to set the boundaries to prevent future lawsuits and/or clarify the law.

    In either case, the RIAA has to risk a favorable or limited decision over no decision whatsoever.

  • Bwhahhaa....yeah right. I guess that was the only way to skirt the heavy fines, right?

    Does anyone honestly think that Napster will retain even 10% of their current user base if they force them to subscribe? Subscription = tracking = loss of privacy to most folks (not that Napster was all that private in the first place, but now it is glaringly apparent to novices).

    I'll see everyone on Gnutella...

  • Re:artists? (Score:3)

    by StormyMonday ( 163372 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @08:52AM (#657746) Homepage
    Who cares?

    The important thing is the *record company* gets paid. They're the ones who own the material.

    After all, the artists are just the paid employees of the record companies. They've already been paid.

    Think I'm kidding? Look up the infamous IRS "twenty questions" and apply them to conditions that musicians work under.

    --
  • want to be free... its was to cost $4.95 a month.
  • You mean like OpenNap [sourceforge.net] and all the other servers out there that use the napster protocol? Napster was REed yonks ago, and the servers have been around a while to. for a list, check out Napigator [napigator.com]
  • Like I have said many times in the past: I have no problem, what so ever, paying for music, if the artist is actually going to get a cut. This might also be cheaper than going out and buying a full CD. My only question is: will there be a preview sample of the songs, maybe a streaming version, so that we can hear before we buy?

    This could also help out the indie artists, now they might be able to make some money and move out of their parent's basements. (Tounge-in-cheek, for those with out a sense of humor)

    ~LE
  • There is no per-download fee, only a subscription. This also has to be pretty cheap, as they are competing with scour, MX, OpenNap, and Gnutella, which are all free.

  • Hmm.. (Score:1)

    by Dest ( 207166 )
    This just proves that Shawn Fanning is your typical retarded 20-something kid, except he has a slight knowledge of Windows API. Holy shit, I am so surprised he is all in it for the money(sarcasm implied)
  • This announcement raises several issues:

    1) How will the subscription fee be distributed? Will it be like the audio-cassette levy, which is split up between the major recording companies? If a user downloads a track from Matador or Alternative Tentacles, will the money go to the artist/label who released it, or to BMG?

    2) What about non-copyrighted content? Will BMG be able to levy a tax on bands putting their demos up and trainspotters sharing their collections of train whistles?

    3) Will the unencrypted MP3 format be used, or replaced with a streaming mechanism (as in Universal's subscription trial) or a user-keyed format (such as Liquid Audio, which can be encoded with the subscriber's credit card number)? The majors seem to be mortally averse to unencrypted audio formats.
  • If BMG will be getting paid for all Napster downloads, what does this mean for all of the concert recordings of taper-friendly bands (Phish, Dave Matthews, etc.) out there? The main stipulation with concert taping is that the recordings are not to be sold or otherwise traded for financial gain. Obviously, BMG (and the other megacorps that will join in this scheme) will be getting paid for 1) dedicated fans' labor of love; 2) Recordings of artists that may not even be signed with said record company; and 3) what is essentially public domain intellectual property. If any of the taper-friendly bands out there are following this closely, they will inevitably conclude that they will be getting screwed in such a deal! BMG profitting from grassroots recordings that aren't supposed to be sold in the first place? BMG making a buck from the MP3's on MY hard drive? Screw you, RIAA, and screw you BMG! I think it's obvious who's ripping off whom now.
  • I've always had an issue with Napster in that many of the times I download a file, the file is incomplete. There may be just a few seconds cut off the end of a song, or it might just be the first few seconds of the song. Either way, the song is incomplete and I end up deleting the file.

    Would turing Napster into a pay-service change this aspect of Napster? Also, what about the quality of the MP3s themselves? I prefer encoding at 192kbps or variable 192-320kbps... but the average person thinks that 128kbps is just fine. I'm not willing to pay for any sort of service that doesn't provide me with the quality I want in my audio, and I don't think that turning Napster into a pay service will accomplish this.

    -agent oranje
  • 1. Well BMG has a LARGE catalog of music that might not be on Napster. And yes there are a lot of "high-quality" MP3's on the free zone but you don't know what your getting. Getting a BlameEnc 160kbps mp3 is different than a LAME 160kpbs mp3 (to me anyways). 2. No clue, maybe the copyright bit that no one uses? Force upgrade Napster-Free so that it won't send anything with the copyright bit I guess. Still, I think that the copyright bit can be changed. Besides that, the fact that people have PAID money and might not be tempted to share files that they have paid (doubt that, someone had to buy all those CDs).
  • No, this does not mean that suddenly artists will get compensated properly for their work. I am very interested in seeing how much they do get out of this; if it's essentially nothing, then I don't think I'm even going to bother. Incidentally, BMG and Columbia House are also engaged in another major screw-the-artist operation: those oh-so-tempting CD clubs. Know why those CDs don't have barcodes (or if they do, they're different from the in-store discs)? That's because those discs are manufactured as promotional items. No sales from those clubs incur any royalties for the artists. If you care about the music you listen to, don't sign with those damn clubs. (And they rape you for postage anyway.) So... where does this leave us, really? Slightly better off than before, but only slightly. And then there's all those companies other than BMG out there slavering and licking their chops.
  • In a few months, napster will be completely dead. People will only be using napster to get to servers through napigator.
    ----------
  • Now when you listen to mp3s, those stupid little white 'Postage Paid' cards will fall out of your speakers
  • next revolution please!

  • Yes, but.. (Score:3)

    by iamsure ( 66666 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @08:44AM (#657767) Homepage
    Notice in the articles, they make a bigger point that there is *still* file trading.

    So, what that would mean is, you pay napster your paltry sum ($5 a month?), and get all the same choices you have now, maybe half as many, PLUS a whole collection of REAAAALLY high quality songs from BMG's collection (one of the largest on the planet).

    This is *EXACTLY* what needs to happen.

    Now, we will get to prove once and for all if it was the price, or the convenience that everyone loved.

    I bet 50% loved the convenience and are willing to pay for it, and the other 50% "Just wants information to be free".

    :)

    We shall see!

  • Hello, OpenNap. (Score:3)

    by Wakko Warner ( 324 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @08:44AM (#657772) Homepage Journal
    Expect to see these servers overloaded in a matter of hours after Napster starts charging for its "service".

    - A.P.

    --
    * CmdrTaco is an idiot.

  • This is a slam-dunk win for Napster.

    One of the key issues -- strike that -- the key legal issue in the Napster case is whether the Napster technology has a "capacity for a substantial non-infringing use." No actual substantial noninfringing use is necessary for Napster to prevail -- just a capacity for the same. That standard is the one stated by the Supreme Court in Sony -- the one, overarching precedent in Napster.

    A key point made in the briefs again and again is that there not only exists such a capacity, but substantial non-infringing uses are increasing in frequency in various ways: particularly the use of peer-to-peer sharing as a means to distribute files for which distribution has been consented. RIAA argues, pathetically, that such consent will never happen.

    Bwaahaha! Gotcha!

    By dealing with Napster to set up a consented, subscription-based sharing service, Bertelsman concedes the point -- there exists a capacity for a substantial non-infringing use, and hence can be no contributory infringement.

  • Re:Really the answer (Score:3)

    by dougman ( 908 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @08:55AM (#657776)
    NO. Artists will NOT get "their money" under this system, to be sure.

    Collecting a monthly fee from users hardly counts as actually being able to quantify how many people downloaded a Britney Spears track versus how many people downloaded a Linda Perry track. You wanna guess how much of this "membership" will make it to ANY artist? I'd be SHOCKED if the amount was more than five percent. Consider the observation Courtney Love made awhile back when she talked about how the labels want to pay artists the "club spin rate" for mp3 downloads? For those not in the business, that's a politely way of saying, "shit". And, again, we're talking about that five percent being "shared" amoung the artists whose lives were signed away to the big evil majors participating. And for an artist who gets some "share" of this five percent, let's then take out about eighty percent off the top for lawyer/management/reco-scum costs.

    Uh-huh. Artists will get paid under this system. Right. Yeah. Whatever.

    Napster totally bent over and took it up the ass here.
  • This is actually a stupid move on the part of the music industry

    I wouldn't put that on the entire music industry. This is just one company, BMG, that sees a way to rake in some money. It will probably hurt the RIAA in the long run but my guess is that BMG doesn't care too much about that, they just want to make some money and the rest of the industry can be damned.

  • Comment removed (Score:5)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @08:56AM (#657780)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • The free (as in beer) Napster client, as been reported around, will be more promotional - probably tracks either at low quality or similar to the BNL's "ad-in-a-mp3" trick. Or maybe just snippets of the songs. Will you still be able to trade your mp3's on it? That's up in the air, but I bet you the answer is "no", at least, you only get servers 'blessed' by the RIAA-groups and not all p2p servers.

  • Actually, if you want to be technical, Gates did run a company before MS, look it up. Secondly, neither Gates nor Jobs requested a large infusion of cash for a totally unknown person/company (i.e., themselves). Thirdly, if Fanning didn't like those terms and conditions, he could have shopped around and found someone else. However, it's extremely doubtful that anyone would be willing to do that for him, especially given the technology.
  • My question is will the monthly fee be the same for everyone? Not really fair to a user on a 28.8 connection who can download maybe a few CDs worth of stuff in a month compared to a nice T1 who can download the whole BMG library in that same amount of time.
  • It seems as a rather logical resolution of this conflict. Given that BMG will provide servers for file hosting and other add-ons. The question which I have is:

    Why $5/month? In the last 4 years I bought 10 CDs ~ $150. I'd have to pay $60/year or total of $240 for the same amount of time. I realize that I'm hardly and average CD buyer, but still...

    This pricing scheme makes sense for "power users". How about an alternative pay-per-download plan?
  • You're paying to use their servers to list the various IP addresses of the people who are currently sharing on the service. You are also paying for the search feature to scan the files of those users (a Napster scan doesn't go to each individual's machine to search for a track title, it downloads all of the available track titles and puts it on a central server).

    That in addition to any new services BMG might want to provide. New B-tracks, special discounts, that sort of thing.

  • Why don't they just have banner ads? Seems simple enough, put in a spot for an ad in the "search" and "transfer" tabs of napster. There's room there and no one would mind, not as much as a monthly membership anyway. Napster could then use some of the money to pay BMG or whoever they need to appease.

  • Deal with the devil (Score:4)

    by bughunter ( 10093 ) <[ten.knilhtrae] [ta] [retnuhgub]> on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @10:07AM (#657799) Journal
    Yah I'd say -- did you notice that Bertelsmann is a major holder in CDNow... the publisher of a new study [theregister.co.uk] oberving how 90 days after downloading Napster, people stop buying CDs.

    Of course, this study conflicts with others that show how Napster promotes record sales. Why?

    [warning: I feel a rant coming on!]

    Hmm... maybe it's because CDNow's service is terrible! My first online shopping experience was with CDNow, and it took then 22 days to ship the 2 CDs I ordered. Twenty-two bloody days! On the 14th day, I used their website to cancel the order, and was sent an email on the 15th day that said it was impossible to cancel the order - it was already in process. But it still took them a week to ship it! I received it on the 24th day.

    Now compare this to Amazon. Yeah, I know: "Amazon's one-click patent sux." But they shipped my single-CD order the next day. Unfortunately, UPS misplaced it. I sent an email requesting that Amazon call UPS and initiate a trace on the shipment. Instead Amazon shipped me another item, priority overnight! That's service! (On top of that, I eventually wound up with two of the items, at the cost of only one. Don't worry - Amazon is making up the trivial loss with my good word of mouth advertising.)

    So the point is - maybe it takes an average of 90 days for internet users - who frequently happen to be Napster users - to recognize that they should avoid CDNow. (It took me only 30 days.)

    This is the type of company that has Bertelsmann as a parent. Be afraid... very afraid.

  • Most people *I* know arent really out to rape the artists

    What makes you so sure that this money goes to the artists any more than buying CD's do? And now, BMG is going to profit off of artists that it has nothing to do with. So in effect, BMG is out there making money from other major record labels, as well as independent artists. I see how BMG is winning from this, but not artists or fans. It just makes the middle man more powerful, and hopefully Lars and Dr. Dre will fight this even more than they were fighting against their fans before. Whatever happens, this is not a good thing that napster and bmg are teaming up. It screws over the fans and artists worse than before.

  • Re:Hello, OpenNap. (Score:3)

    by aqua ( 3874 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @08:57AM (#657803)
    I suspect we'll see a pattern resembling what's become of IRC -- quite a few networks, run well or run badly, with roughly similar characteristics. Any given piece of music can probably be found on any one of them. This especially applies since opennap includes an IRC-like chat system, which gives a slight nudge of particular appeal beyond merely trading files. Which will probably be healthy, as irritating as chat systems tend to be.

    The good part being, here, that the music industry probably can't go after a mercurial system like this -- you can't clean up mercury with a flyswatter, as they've discovered here and there in the past (decss, et al).

  • This is actually a stupid move on the part of the music industry

    Bertelsmann AG, specifically, not the industry as a whole. Napster has a long way to go, yet.

    One thing they music industry could seriously benefit on, here, is the ability to meter the access of music. Follow trends, etc.

    I, for one, have been bummed a number of times that a favorite album got damaged and, guess what? It's no longer available, go to ebay or something. I hope they get it all worked out, its really the best to have a fair compromise which benefits the producers (who did put up some development money), the artists and the fans.


    --

  • Re:Really the answer (Score:3)

    by truthsearch ( 249536 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @08:58AM (#657807) Homepage Journal
    There'll always be another service which is free. Someone will soon come up with another similar, maybe compatible, sharing concept which will in effect be a free version of Napster. I'm not speaking of Gnutella because that's a different concept. Since the dawn of time (somewhere in the 1980's when computers became popular) there have been free services to compete with the ones which charge. I remember the good-old days of loggin onto BBS's before there was a public internet to download stuff on a 1200 baud modem for free. MS charges a bundle for a somewhat stable OS, while there's free competitive software which just about matches up (and will surpass it soon).
  • Um, Napster is simultaneously promising to implement capabilities that in court they testified that they don't have -- namely, to monitor the transfers themselves, in order to determine which MP3s are transferred when.

    Um, No. This straw man has nothing to do with the case.

    Napster stated, truthfully and undeniably, that they cannot infer from the "title" of a work whether the work does or does not contain copyrighted subject matter that is being transferred without consent or subject to a fair use exception. Napster further stated, truthfully and undeniably, that the transfers of content are accomplished peer-to-peer, without capacity for review or intervention by Napster.

    Nothing described thus far in this thread contradicts those propositions or gives rise to any questions of credibility. There is no cause of action in the complaint for negligence, and accordingly, there is no legal basis for which anyone should be "nailed for massive amounts" thereof.
  • Salon is running an article [salon.com] that goes into a lot more detail on the deal.

    The author, Damien Cave, doesn't identify his sources, other than some quotes from Napster CEO Barry. But he describes the deal as a) a loan from Bertelsmann to Napster, b) rights for Bertelsmann to buy part of Napster, c) a promise to drop the lawsuit once a membership service is online, and d) the availablilty of the Bertelsmann catalog for the membership service.

    Cave also describes how the existing free service will remain.

  • What about all the artists who DON'T have representation with BMG or the other corporation record companies? I guess their cuts of the subscription price go to whoever partners with Napster. Ah... sounds progressive.
  • Sounds like this deal is in all ways wrong. It's like Stallman writing a program with great market potential and deciding that he's going to sell it to Microsoft.

    Let's see if Shawn's soul gets into that big open-source community in the sky *now*.

    I for one am going to switch immediately to OpenNap and Scour. Not that I have a problem with paying $5 a month for music, but it's the principle of the thing.
  • Well then try this. Take control of your own works.

    Start your own web site and 'open source' your music. Provide radio quality mp3's of your work, all of it, not just select items.

    SELL the CD version from your site for $10. At today's prices for having a pro house cut your CD's and deliver them to you in jewel cases with full color art your gross profit for that is $9 if you only order 100 at a time. More than that if you go for bigger batches. You sell 1000 this way and you'll put more money your own pocket than if you sold 100,000 through the traditional channels.

    Live shows. Noone can steal those. If you have a good live show, at a price people will pay, you make a living. *GIVE AWAY* cd's of your radio quality mp3's at your shows. SELL the full CD for the $10.

    This is just an extention of the Grateful Dead model into the digital age. The boys never made as much money as KISS, but they never went hungry either and could gig their asses off.

  • So what if they have a subscription service, even if they keep around their free service. When is the last time you used a server actually run by napster anyway? Frankly, I find the selection on non-napster owned servers to be better anway, and they are often just less clogged up.

    So how do you do this, you ask? Just head right over to a server list (such as napigator's) [napigator.com], find yourself an opennap server, load it up in gnapster [gotlinux.org] and go on with your bad self. No fuss, no muss, no bother.

    So somebody tell me again why napster's decision to have a subscription service matter? Do you really need to pay money per month to be able to download the newest Back Street Boy's single?

  • Another point is: I am not interested in supporting the people who bring me the music. I am interested in supporting the people who MADE the music.

    Obviously, the people who MAKE the music are the ones who start the process to bring it to you. Along with the team that wrote the song, the producer, etc. They're a huge part of the equation, and they're the ones I was referring to.

    I don't give a flying fuck about the record labels.

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • something > nothing.

    you must have missed math class that day?

  • OpenNap (Score:3)

    by Ex Machina ( 10710 ) <jonathan.william ... inus threevowels> on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @12:29PM (#657854) Homepage
    I guess this means I'll go use OpenNap.
  • It's rare that one finds an item on Napster that they couldn't find from a friend they already have.

    Unless you don't have a lot of friends that trade mp3s, or aren't fans of the same bands/artists that you are.

    The only reason I finally fired up Gnapster was because it occurred to me that I could find a couple of oddball songs by one of my favorite bands, Moxy Fruvous [fruvous.com] -- specifically a song they did on their demo tape which used the words to Dr. Suess' "Green Eggs and Ham". Apparently the good doctor (or his estate) pointed out that he discourages use of his works in certain venues, so they haven't distributed any more copies of their demo tape (though they will perform it live on occasion).

    But all it took was for one person to rip it to MP3 and voila! It lives forever.

    And in the process, I found out that they have not one, but two new albums, because the songs were available on Napster! I've tracked down one of them and am looking for the other one (I guess I'd have to say that yes, Napster does not discourage me from buying CDs) if only so I can re-rip them at better quality (or even ogg [vorbis.com]-ify them...)

    Jay (=
  • Oh please. Shawn wrote a simple piece of software, and he got a nice chunk of change for it. He did not take the lion's share of the risk or effort. His uncle did. Shawn also doesn't know how to run a business. He doesn't deserve to "run" the company, and he wouldn't know how to anyways.

  • I'm in if.... (Score:5)

    by sdo1 ( 213835 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @10:26AM (#657863) Journal
    $5/month sounds OK. Even $20/month (maybe higher), if it were open to just about all music available, would be fine. That's still far less than I spend on CDs every month. Why do this rather than just take what's already free? If I download for free instead of buy, I feel that's stealing... no ifs ands or buts about it. Hard-to-find stuff is a different matter.

    A couple of caveats before I sign up...

    It must be HIGH quality. The best MP3 is barely good enough. I've got a high speed connection, so I wouldn't mind pulling down a couple hundred meg per CD.

    No watermarking. That will kill the sound quality and it disturbs music intentionally recorded in surround (messes up the pro-logic steering). Plus I don't like being tracked.

    It has to be a portable format with no restrictions. MP3 is fine (except for the sound quality issue) because I can convert to .wav and burn onto a CD. None of this proprietary "gotta use our player" stuff.

    I want privacy options. What I download and the type of music I listen to is between me and the company I download from. I don't want to be a part of their marketing statistics, either as an individual or as part of a demographic.

    I want cover art and inserts. Downloadable is fine, but make it high quality.

    Finally, I'd like to know how my monthly fee gets distributed to artists.

    -S
  • Excellent point -- BMG and Napster are really going to have to plan this out a little better; just because you're in the news with a plan doesn't mean that you have every problem worked out. They're going to have MAJOR complaints from dial-up customers...
    --

  • OpenNAP (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    And all OpenNAP [sourceforge.net] servers experience the equivalent of a dozen Slashdot effects...

    It's simple. Napster sold out and I'm moving to OpenNAP [sourceforge.net] servers.

    And if they ban OpenNAP there's always FreeNET. The greedy capitalist record bastards can't stop us! We are the future!

  • My (conspiracy) Theory (Score:5)

    by danderson ( 157560 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @09:03AM (#657872)
    Did anyone notice that BMG will be giving Napster a loan? Here's my theory:

    Napster & BMG will develop a fee-based service for high quality MP3s. BMG will mandate a subscription fee that is unreasonable in the minds of most people. Very few people (if any) will join pay-Napster. With so few people paying for it, Napster won't be able to pay their bills or the loan back. Eventually Napster (the company) will go bankrupt and BMG will declare (enthusiastically) that the only reason Napster existed was for "pirates" to get free music. Selling music over the internet just doesn't work. BMG will claim that they tried to work along with Napster, but the business model was flawed from the beginning.

    That's my prediction. Maybe I'm just too cynical.

  • Once the novelty of Napster wears off, and since they are paying to use the service, users will demand high-quality MP3s from trusted sources, instead of slow downloads from some guy who didn't even get all of the song ripped. So naturally the music publisher will supply them. And people will mostly download from the music publisher. Napster will turn from a peer-to-peer network into a client-server network, similar to what eMusic has done with flat-rate unlimited MP3 downloads, except with a proprietary browser (the Napster client). Big publishers will get a piece of the fees and lots of exposure, but indie artists looking for exposure will be shut out of both exposure and fees.

    So is this good or bad? I personally like the idea of a centralized place to get MP3s, with guaranteed quality. I don't want to download them from my neighbor if I can't tell ahead of time what the quality is.

    But I also don't like the idea that an indie publisher or individual will have to pay to put their songs on Napster, their fans will pay to download them, and BMG gets money both ways.

  • I'll support this IF... (Score:3)

    by Cognoscento ( 154457 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @09:05AM (#657876)

    Here's what EXACTLY needs to happen for me to support this:

    1) Access can't be to JUST BMG's "active catalogue". The whole reason I (and many many others) use Napster is for those hard-to-find songs, the ones that have been out of print.. the ones I can't get anywhere else except through Napster.

    2) They MUST allow for some sort of short term "try-out period" for songs... That would give you more incentive to check out new things (risk free). I mean, how often does it happen that you download a song only to find out that it's not what you thought it was? (I know, I know, you should check DURING the download...) If the "rights management" system gave me an hour or so to decide whether to "keep" the song, it would deal pretty well with that issues, I think.

    Those are just my 2 cents worth...

  • I dont agree.

    A 256kbps mp3 recorded from a master, in a clean-room implementation would probably sound pretty damn good to the naked ear.

    I really find it unlikely that people will 'demand' more.

    As to the secure format.. the second they leave the .mp3 format, is the second they lose their audience.

    From players, to file swapping, there are a million reasons why NOT to use anything but.

  • Neat (Score:5)

    by Dante333 ( 25148 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @08:45AM (#657886)
    Now we can pay to share our hardrive space and bandwidth!! Will we get discounts if we share more?
  • It's kinda funny, the same people everyone was once fighting for (napster) is now making a deal with the devil (self explanatory). For some, $5 will be fine a month (morality and such). I, on the other hand will still use filenavigator (http://www.filenavigator.com) with opennap servers (http://opennap.sourceforge.net). But...Napster still hasn't won. They still have 4 other record companies to deal with.
  • Yeah right. Who's going to pay that? 0.1% of the current Napster user-base? The entire appeal of Napster is that it's free. If Napster starts charging, people will just use another service.

    This may solve the Napster issue. But it sure doesn't solve the P2P issue at all.

  • Where's the value that Napster will provide to subscription-paying users, beyond what they will be able to get through other, illicit channels like Gnutella, IRC, and other free media? Why should I pay for their "service" instead of finding music for free elsewhere?

    I tend to think that deals like this that require a paying subscriber base will be more of a threat to Napster's survival than the lawsuits...

  • Clarification (Score:5)

    by tbo ( 35008 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @08:47AM (#657901) Journal
    Note that the article says that Napster will develop a membership-based service, not that they will end their free service.

    They may do both in parallel, shutting down the free service only if they are legally required to. Or, they may just cripple the free service in some way... In any case, people are just going to jump ship to Scour, MX, Gnutella...

    This is actually a stupid move on the part of the music industry, since, without a legal precedent, they'll have to jump through all the hoops again to bring down those other services. If they'd just stuck with their guns and brought down Napster, they'd have much more clout to threaten those other services.

  • Re:Where's the value? (Score:3)

    by Accipiter ( 8228 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @09:09AM (#657907)
    Where's the value that Napster will provide to subscription-paying users, beyond what they will be able to get through other, illicit channels like Gnutella, IRC, and other free media?

    Um, how about legitimacy?

    This new service might not become the be-all end-all of pay-for-music online service, but it will open the door to better ways of doing it.

    The people that use Napster for legitimate reasons (all 10 of them), will NOT mind a $5 subscription charge to get the music they like *LEGALLY*. You don't want to pay $15 for a CD? Fine. Pay your subscription, and download your music from BMG/Napster's extensive collection. You get your music through legal distribution channels, you're getting it in mp3, AND YOU'RE SUPPORTING THE PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR BRINGING YOU YOUR FAVORITE MUSIC.

    Or, you could be one of the billions of thieves out there that steals music through "illicit channels", and was responsible for mp3's bad reputation to begin with.

    I'm not a current Napster user, nor have I ever touched it. However, if this subscription service works well, I'll gladly participate.

    Almost all of the excuse-robots on Napster are justifying their theft by claiming that "CDs are too expensive!" Well folks, this is a solution to that problem. If you still need to complain, and $5 is too much for you to spend...stick with your FM radio.

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • Remember - We still have a lawsuit (Score:4)

    by Masem ( 1171 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @09:10AM (#657913)
    I know it seems obvious, but the lawsuit with the 4 other companies is still pending, with the court to pass it's decision any day now. Specifically: is it ok to trade copyrighted materials for non-commercial uses?

    Think about that.

    If the court finds in favor of Napster, this opens up a lot of potental to 'free' IP that has otherwise been sat on. Copying CDs to MP3 and posting on the net? Legal. Copying DVDs to VCD format, and posting freely on the net? Legal. Copying ebook text and posting to the net? Legal. (Of course, assuming you didn't hack any copyright controls).

    Think about that from RIAA, MPAA, e-book publishers pov for a moment.

    This is a very scary and eye-opening case. I can see two things happening. Either the remaining RIAA groups feel they have a win that they will stick it out and make sure to get a ruling, or they will drop the case and join BMG in the service. In the former case, if they get the win, it would be unlikely that Napster would win in the SC, and RIAA would be able to relax. However, if they lose, and on any appeals, the entire structure for how RIAA, MPAA, and those others make money is gone. And given their actions, they are aging, and may not be able to survive such a blow. [*] In the latter case, with the threat of such a decision gone for the moment until they figure out how to sue Gnutella, that situation of IP opening up will not come to pass and they can rest easier. If I were RIAA, I know which way I would go. In addition, current law offices that specialize in copyright and music industries indicate that Napster's defense is very strong, including the fact that non-commercial sharing is specifically referred to and protected in the DMCA.

    [*] Mind you, the decision could specific relate only to musical works. Movies and such may not be covered, but even with a little break like music, the other art forms are only another lawsuit away.

    I'm excited about a member-based Napster, I'd gladly pay a small fee to get high quality recordings. But there is something to be said about opening up the IP that is controlled by a few, and I would be willing to have that over the member-based Napster.

  • What is he supposed to say? "Thank God these guys were willing to deal, or else I'd really be fscked?"
    Not bloody Likely
  • The article says that Napster will be paying a (presumably flat) fee to the record company. Will any of that get passed on to the artists? Even if so, as someone else pointed out, will it be relative to the number of downloads?

    If not, then artists are still not getting compensated for their work that appears on Napster. It would be interesting to see if some of the bands find this agreement insufficient and still sue Napster.

  • They MUST allow for some sort of short term "try-out period" for songs... That would give you more incentive to check out new things (risk free).

    That's why they are charging a monthly fee instead of a 'by-download' fee. That way, you can try out all of the music you like...risk free.
    --

  • This is going to suck. Here's why.

    If Napster is no longer available for free (actually no acticles state their free service is ending), then you can forget about having a program you can use to find any song, anytime.

    The beauty of napster is the sheer number of songs available. If there is a membership thing implemented, then a lot less people are going to be connected, sharing their files. The huge selections of songs is going to melt to a tiny fraction of what it once was.

    This is truly the end of something great.
  • What I want to know is, where can I trade OGGs? Not Napster, that's for sure.
  • Aside from obvious privacy concerns with user registration and Napster working together with record companies, the file base will shrink significantly. People are deluding themselves if they think paying $4.95 a month will let them keep using Napster as it is now.

    Napster's main strength is its huge user and file base. Even if you're willing to pay $4.95 a month, I'd guess 90% of Napster users aren't. This means that finding anything obscure or non-mainstream will be a LOT harder, since 90% of the file sharers have left(and hopefully migrated to Gnutella!)

    Without the huge user base and diversity of files they provide, searching for anything other than a radio-played single will be futile. This of course favors the major record companies and media conglomerates, which I doubt BMG would mind one bit... The question is how long before they institute a per-song charge? They already have some sort of automated credit card billing system to collect your $4.95 each month.

    A more important question is, will anyone care, or will we all have left BMG/Napster in the dust and be sharing the love through gnutella, MX, opennap, or whatever?

  • To: Director of IT operations.

    For various reasons that have come to my attention, I believe we may need to add more USENET servers. Based on our market share and other data, I believe we can anticipate a dramatic increase in USENET traffic, especially in the binary groups. Some of the other managers and I had a meeting this afternoon and discussed the possibility of blocking the binary groups, but decided that in order to provide our customers the level of service to which they are accustomed, that should not be done. So, add some more USENET servers. If you have any questions, you know where to reach me.

  • Re:Hello, OpenNap. (Score:3)

    by iamsure ( 66666 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @08:47AM (#657922) Homepage
    I agree and disagree.

    I think OpenNap WILL become more popular, but I think you will see ALOT of people willing to pay, so the artists do get some money.

    Most people *I* know arent really out to rape the artists, and get a free lunch, they just LOVE being able to download THAT mp3 they are looking for in 3 seconds flat.

    BUT, i also can see alot of people "getting their money worth" by getting a HUGE harddrive, and SUCKING down PILES of mp3's for a month or two, and then leaving the service, only to return every 6 months or so. :)

    We shall see..
  • BMG? The CD club? Oh, shit, Napster users better get the fuck out now, before BMG gets your e-mail address or anything.

    (Those CD clubs are nasty I was a member of Columbia House for about a year, six or seven years ago. I cancelled. To this day, I still get snail-mail and even phone calls every few months. Talk about thick-headed. Just imagine if they had my e-mail address... *shudder*)

    ---------///----------
    All generalizations are false.

  • It's my.mp3.com (Score:3)

    by SmileyBen ( 56580 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @08:48AM (#657926) Homepage
    Yet again we seem to be seeing the people who claim to be protecting their work rubber-stamping a company once they see they can make money out of it. Does Shawn Fanning really not see the irony in saying 'I am excited that Bertelsmann appreciates and values the uniqueness of the community Napster users have built.' of a company that is currently suing them.

    So yet again we're being told that the only way we're allowed to have MP3s is if we personally encode them on our computers. I thought we were all supposed to be moving to a new computer model where the desktop computer and the Internet are inseparable and complement one another. Evidentally not.
  • They (Napster CEO and Bertelsmann CEO) said that Napster will continue to serve files for free to users, and that they will pose no limitations on that. They will offer an additional service, giving users the possibility to download "high quality MP3 from the BMG catalog (and the catalogs of willing partners)" paying a fee. Now, this raises a few interesting questions: 1) How many people will choose to pay for a song when they can have it for free, even if the recording isn't so good (which i doubt, 'cause on Napster there are plenty of perfect recordings). Maybe they're going to filter files in the free section, limiting availability to those of low quality? 2) What will prevent me from downloading an "high-quality MP3" and post it in the free zone? Do you have any insight?
  • Really, what do we know? It's going to be "membership-based."

    But until they reveal more about their business model, it's too late to cry foul, bemoan corporate sellouts, cheer victory, or predict demise. I mean, come on... everyone knew Fanning was going to parley Napster's huge user base into something profitable sooner or later...

    We don't even know how the big record houses are reacting to this... it's just too early!

  • The press release doesn't say that Napster will be subscription based (which would imply payment). It says it will be membership based, which, I believe, it is already.

    The only paragraph mentioning subscriptions it this:

    Bertelsmann's forward-thinking approach will enable the new Napster membership-based file sharing service to become an important community for artists, record companies and consumers. BMG, as a leader in the online space, supports an array of secure, digital distribution alternatives that respects copyrights, including file sharing, downloads and subscription services.

    which talks about BMG having expertise in subscription based services, and does not link this fact to Napster.

    To be fair, the press release doesn't say Napster won't ever be subscription based, but it doesn't say it will either.

    --

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • As many people have pointed out, this would essentially be Napster/BMG making money by us letting other people suck *our* bandwidth up. Gee, thats a system and a half.

    This still doesn't help find out which mp3's are legal and which ones arent, or where to get high quality ones from?

    The only way I can see this working that doesn't suck is if we get a new user "BMG" which sits on every napster server with a huge connection and acts as an official server for the high quality BMG legal mp3's.

    Of course they'd rather make money while letting us do all the work and incur all the costs.

    Wow, Capitalism sucks.

  • Where are the BMG songs going to be hosted? (Score:3)

    by Rob Parkhill ( 1444 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @08:49AM (#657945) Homepage
    One question that nags me is "where will the BMG catalog be hosted?"

    I would hope that if I am paying a fee for this new service, then I will be guaranteed to find a high quality recording of the songs I am looking for. This means BMG/Napster needs to set up some big honking file servers of their own for me to use.

    If, however, BMG is just going to dump the catalog on Napster and let the peer-to-peer network take care of hosting it, where is the value? Can I charge BMG for hosting their songs? If others are paying Napter/BMG to download a song, and that download actually uses my resources, how am I compensated?

    I'm wating for a lot more detail on this before passing judgement.

  • Re:Remember - We still have a lawsuit (Score:3)

    by SethJohnson ( 112166 ) on Wednesday November 01, 2000 @02:04PM (#657947) Homepage Journal


    If the court finds in favor of Napster, this opens up a lot of potental to 'free' IP that has otherwise been sat on.

    If napster is undefeated in court, this isn't the precedent that will be set. In fact, it might win due to existing precedents. Due to the complexities of the impact on IP law that you mentioned, it's highly unlikely that the court would rule that RIAA v. Napster now means you can freely copy anything whose copyright is owned by a third party.

    IF the court sides with napster, it will be because napster is a service provider that maintains an index of files that individuals have available on their own servers. This is analogous to the indexes that yahoo.com, lycos.com, google.com provide for html documents on web servers. Precedent has been established that relinquishes a service providers responsibility for the content streaming through its pipes because monitoring it would make the service unfeasible to provide. (napster distinguishing pirated Snoop Dog mp3's from high school piano recitals is akin to yahoo checking that some guys web page doesn't contain scanned text from an electronics repair manual.) Any court, when it can, will choose to rule on established precedents rather than forging a new one.

    The one attack that can knock down the service provider defense is if the service can be proved to have no non-illicit use. So Napster proves legitimacy for the distribution service by entering into an agreement with BMG. Bingo. Now rather than claiming that one out of a million of the traded mp3's is really a garage band's demo mp3, Napster will be able to point at this agreement.

    Of course this is all moot, though, as Napster will quickly go out of business as users shift to competing free services. Those record companies are so crafty!



    Seth
  • RedHerring 's article [redherring.com], Excite's copy of Reuter's coverage [excite.com], and Zdnet's article [google.com], not to mention CNN and the rest.

    It's hard to say why the internet press is jumping all over this one: is it to appeal to their target audiences which include mp3 snarfers or is it just a big human-interest story, in the way Time and Newsweek and all the dead-tree rags have covered it. But at least Napster's demonstrated one thing: even people who aren't willing to pay for their music can still provide the eyeballs for banner revenue models. And ultimately, that's the only way any of these consortia will be economically viable.

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