Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Music Media

Napster, Edel Hook Up 61

Posted by Hemos from the good-news-for-napster dept.
mongolian_beef writes "Edel Music AG, an independent European music label, has agreed to distribute music over Napster Inc.'s popular song-swapping service, marking the Internet upstart's biggest deal since it agreed to create a legal version of its service with Bertelsmann AG. Under the terms of the deal, Napster will make songs by popular Edel artists such as Craig David and 2Step available to those of its 50 million registered users who agree to sign up as members for its new fee-based song-swapping service. Financial terms weren't disclosed."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Napster, Edel Hook Up More

Napster, Edel Hook Up

Comments Filter:
  • Actually, if they have a lot of UK/2Step Garage artists like Craig David and 2Step, I'm suprised they had a bad year. UK Garage is probably going to blow up big this year outside of England, and those guys are among the best. If you don't know what Garage is, its basically everything good about R&B, Drum and Bass and House music, all smashed together.

  • Why all the B&M on fee-based napster? (Score:5)

    by Masem ( 1171 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @05:40AM (#535292)
    Sure, when napster first came out, it was free, could have gotten nearly any song ever made, yada yada yada. But all this meant was that the creators/musicans of the songs never got to see a cent from all that downloading, which I know a good majority felt was wrong (yet some still continued to use napster). Now Napster's going to a *SMALL* fee ($5/mnth is a bargain!) for unlimited, legal access to a good library of music (and hoping to increase it), the musicans will get a cut (abet small), and most people appear to be B&M about this. It really doesn't make sense, though the main reason I'll get to in a bit.

    Face it, there were basically only two ways that the Napster and digital music on the net would have worked out: either we get this sort of settlement between the RIAA companies and Napster, or we start the world's largest game of whack-a-mole to remove all illegal music distribution sites on the net (And if you think that freenet or gnutella would offer protection, I very much doubt it, since it would be the operators of the various servers/peers that would be threatened, not necessarily the creators of the program). IMO, the first option of working out a deal is a much better prospect.

    I know most of the complaining comes down to money: physical music CDs are too expensive, and early Napster was free. For starving college kids, the choice is easy. But let's say that all the other RIAA companies jump on with BMG and the $5/mnth service continues with lots of sign-upers. At $5/mnth, that's about equal to 3 to 5 CDs a YEAR in terms of price, and I know that's a bargain. Because of that, CD sales might flounder as more people sign on -- on the other hand, CD sales could continue steady or rise if people use Napster to pre-test albums. If the former case occurs, two things would have to happen: either the napster fee would have to be increased (which would cause a lot of people to drop out, and therefore the last possible resort), or the cost of CDs will go down, which is beneficial for everyone, since the music industry appears to be operating right of the supply-demand interestion-- lowering costs will increase sales and increase revenue. If the latter case happens, with increased sales, the only thing that the RIAA people could do is to continue to embrace Napster and possibly lower fees to entice more people to it.

    Remember, the boundary right now for most average people is the question of legality of downloading music as such. The fee-based Napster takes away any such threat, and I would expect to see a massive rush of people joining Napster for this service when it's made available.

  • "popular Edel artists such as Craig David and 2Step "

    If these 'artists' are so popular, why haven't I heard of them? Are they Christian or black? And if I haven't heard of them, why in the heck would I want to pay for the service? And, why would I pay if I could still (presumably, if I wanted it), get the same crap on the free version?

  • Just a Bertelsmann PR manoeuvre (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Edel is a mid-size, ultra-commercial German record label that sells Eurotrash teenager pop music. Their stock has gone down considerably with the decline of the "new economy". (Yes, NEMAX - the German NASDAQ equivalent - equally includes Internet companies, TV/film production companies and record labels.) It has been written in the German press that Bertelsmann might take Edel over soon. Given the bad resonance the Bertelsmann/Napster deal in the rest of the music industry, this move is pretty obvious PR fluff.
  • Popular in Europe.
  • Aaah. Gotcha.

  • Unfortunately, there is a simple problem with the Napster alternatives, which would keep P2P free for n's untold millions of users. That is, unfortunately, Napster got there early, and big, and has entrenched itself. Right about now, you can start thinking of it as the Microsoft of peer to peer.

    These days, especially on the Internet (or anything to do with technology really) there are always alternatives, which may offer better options than the service you are using. It might be free, or faster, or smaller, or skinnable, or hackable. However, the simple fact of the matter is that people who dont do much else with their computer than turn them on and double click their MSN/AOL icon dont really care about bigger, better, faster, more when it comes to software, and especially software dealing with Peer to Peer.

    They want familiarity. They want what they can call their sister for help with. They want what is spoon fed to them by mass media. They want Napster. Now, if they are soon required to pay some almost indecernable fee ($5 a month or what have you) to continue to use the service just as they have, with no upgrades in software, the majority of users will just pony up and forget about it. These days, we dont have an army of freedom fighters. We have legions of corp-drones.

    Now, specifically, there shouldn't be a concern over paying for downloaded music (within reasonable limits) or electronically distributed music. What should be the concern is to whom the fee will be payed?

    I, for one, find it interesting and hilarious that the RIAA and labels scream about the rights of the artists. Do not be fooled. They dont care about the rights of the artists. What labels care about is their profits. When you download music, you aren't taking $16-18 out of the mouth of the artist (who only gets at most maybe 10 cents per album sale), you are taking $15.90 out of the hands of the label. Why else would so few artists be complaining (Metallica and Dr. Dre not withstanding) and yet the labels screaming bloody murder?

    In my naive idealistic brain, I saw Napster as a tool against the record labels, who charge consumers/fans bloody hell prices, yet pay artists mere PENNIES per album. I dislike Napster's new policy of cooing up to the labels. What would have been smarter, and the more forward-thinking system, is for them to have setup trusts for the ARTISTS, and have them payed directly. Would you really complain if you had to pay .05 cents to an artist for a try-before-buy (or even a try-and-never-buy) rather than .05 cents to some conglomerate who would give the actual creator of the music about a billionth of that?

    Now here is where the O.S. community can come in and make a major triumph. The average consumer is going to need a reason to change from fee-based, label-paying napster to another client. What is the O.S. community could setup a system to pay the correct people, with a constantly evolving yet stable (and maybe auto-updating, for the comp-illterate) client and service system? Maybe appealing to peoples sense of honesty and fairness (the same that would make many of them pay the Napster fee) would get them to switch to a service that works the same, but pays out to the right people?

  • "Because Napster has done nothing wrong, has broken no law, and should not be bullied into these agreements."

    Napster has not broken any law, this is true. However, they have harbored criminals who ARE stealing copyrighted material. This means that they must work with law enforcement firms to stop the criminal activities taking place on their network.

    I do agree that what has happened to Napster is a damn shame. But it was inevitable. We all have to realize that justice IS being served. However, the RIAA should be attacking this issue from a different standpoint. They should never have tried to shut napster down, they should not have tried to block the exchange of music over the internet. Instead, they should have embraced the new technology and used it to their advantage!

    The record industry could use the new technologies created by Napster to further their distribution techniques. Statistics have

    proven that the free exchange of music has led to an increase in CD sales. The record industry could use this information to gather marketing information about the consumers who are actually BUYING the music, (instead of the ones PUSHING it (MTV)).

    By ignoring what the consumers habits are, the RIAA is missing out on a golden opportunity to INCREASE their sales.

  • Re:Throw them in and see if they sink... (Score:3)

    by cyber-vandal ( 148830 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @08:23AM (#535299) Homepage
    As far as I can tell, the garage scene consists of a bloke with a drawn-on beard, a fat ex-boy band member, a bunch of black guys wittering on about how they're the best rappers in the world and how much sex they have (every 'new' music style has had this since 1982 - old aren't I?) and the obligatory 'sassy' (i.e. wearing virtually nothing) females.
  • I have been thinking about this for some time and have come to the conclusion that I can't find a single thing wrong with it. So here goes:

    What if napster started charging a small fee, say 5-10 cents per download, and a percentage of that say 2 or 3 cents went to the uploader?

    Proprietary software could be issued for ripping mp3's from a cd and tagging them in the beginning and the end with a "quality code" so that if at the end of the download both are not present then the song is said to be incomplete and therefor not considered downloaded.

    People make money by hosting songs. People paya fair amount of money for their mp3's and everyone is happy.

    If 100 people a day were to download from me then that would be about $2-3 and in a month I would have enough to cover the cost of my bandwidth! (And buy more cd's to rip)...

    Fuck dealing with BMG... Anyone see anything that I'm missing?

  • I do agree, that if you are sitting on a 56k modem, $5/mnth isn't that great of a bargain compared to a cable or dsl line, but it still is a savings. And, IMO, if you are having that much trouble with your dailup line, there's something wrong with your ISP or your modem setup, both which you can change. The easiest way to look at this is that you STILL download a new album overnight assuming no major failure, and 30 albums/mnth for $5...

    Now, as for bitrates and size, I would think that those that are just downloading to hear music aren't going to care about bitrates -- they just want to hear said tracks. On the other hand, those that are audiophiles are probably going to download the 128k files and make a decision to buy the album or not from those, since the CD will be better quality than the mp3. That leaves those that download the 196 or higher bitrates but won't buy the album; I would figure that these are the people that are already going to have the large bandwidth and storage mediums that they don't have to worry about this.

    I do agree that a flat $5 month for all users is questionable given the difference between usage patterns, but trying to charge based on transfer rate will also raise problems. Do you set the change at the time that the user creates the account? If so, I'll create the account on a dail-up and then go use work or home broadband to get everything I need. Do you charge by bytes sent? Then there is a loss of anonymousity as napster can now easily track who downloads what since they have to keep track of bytes.

  • Hello McFlyyyy The answer is, because the costs of distribution by the record labels has been reduced to zero because of the internet. I mean up to now music labels have been recording this stuff and shipping these cds out to us at music stores and there is a cost involved in that. Now cuz of the internet that cost is zero, they don't have to do any work. The system is now infinitely efficient because of technology.
  • The problem is refunds. I download an eric clapton from you, but its actually a britney spears that you just renamed. Or at least I claim it is. I want a refund, and penalty for wasting my time and bandwidth. How is napster going to resolve that dispute?

  • What's to stop people from grabbing this new music from the pay site, then posting it to the free one? All it takes is a few people to do this, then the ball is rolling.

    It'll be interesting to see how Napster handles this.
  • Okay, I'm an average consumer (Okay, I'm NOT an average consumer, but I'm a consumer, with a credit card)

    I get on Napster one day, and a popup window saying "Give us your credit card number, we'll charge you 15 dollars (or 3 dollars a month, or 5 cents a download, or WHAT-EVER) and this will all be legal. " (paraphrased for my convience)

    Now, I've got a credit card, my wallet lives (when its not in my pocket) on my computer desk, (Eh, so my wallet is the case for my Palm Pilot, I'm SURE there are real non-geek people out there who toss their wallet on the computer desk too, but I digress) -- so I yank out Mr.Visa, and I give Napster the relativly minor amount of money they want.

    And I download my little music-lovin heart out for another year.

    Because I'm LAZY. I don't *WANT* to download gnutella. I don't WANT to learn yet another protocol. My time is valuable (Even if its spent playing Command and Conquer with my roommate).

    Giving Napster 15 dollars (or 3, or 5 cents or whateveR) is MUCH simpler than downloading gnutella, installing gnutella, learning to USE gnutella, teaching my roommate to use gnutella, mpoving my mp3's, etc, etc.

    But, at the moment -- with Napster NOT requiring it, and only asking us to pay for stuff from some weird Eurolabel? Eh. No, I'll pass. I'll spend my 15 dollars on something else. Its too much of a pain for something I might not want.

    When its a sure thing -- it'll take off. Now? I don't think it will.


    Poor little no puppy toe!

  • I think your comment presumes the industry is more competitive and that demand for music is more elastic than it in fact is.

    Seems to me that the industry will view Napster as yet another revenue stream, and will increase or keep steady prices for both Napster and CDs. Demand's unlikely to drop much, and the increased revenue per unit will more than make up for those few who drop off. And they can continue to classify as piracy those of us who continue to share without paying.

    But maybe I'm just a cynic.
  • most average joes would not use napster because they feel they may be violating the law

    i'l bet you that there are more average joes, and janes that use napster then you think, yea they sometimes fell bad, about it but some see it as a means to share w/ the kids. ie i have worked in a retail, ppl are mp3 players and good computer speakers, for napter, errr the kids...

    nmarshall

    The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
  • Remember that RIAA has gotten a hand slap for overchanging CD prices [cnn.com], thought that's pretty much all it was. With all the controversy over CD costs and online music, the music industry will be in the FTC's sights for some time, and increasing the costs of both cds and napster above rate of inflation rates will set off bells at FTC HQ.

  • Okay, let's say they charge me five dollars a month to download any song I want. I would gladly pay for this if and only if:

    1) The download is reliable
    2) The encoding is good

    Much like if I buy a CD, I expect the store to actually give me the CD when I give them the money (#1) and I expect the CD to not sound like absolute crap (#2). Okay, let's look at these two conditions, huh?

    Download is reliable: right now, it takes me about 5-6 tries to get a song downloaded. Most of the connections either hang ("getting info...") or don't work ("user X is improperly configured"), the song is wrong ("great, Limp Bizkit with 75% of lyrics blanked out"), mistitled ("hey, Livin' La Vida Yoda doesn't sound like Weird Al!"), etc.

    Encoding is good: right now, even if I'm careful to sort by time and download the longest one, 75% the encoding stinks. Either the last few seconds of the song is cut off, the rip is simply awful with distortion, or there are gaps in the middle. I need to sit and listen *carefully* to tell if it's a marginally decent rip.

    The question is this: how can Napster address these issues, given their architecure? Answer: they can't. They would have to host music traditionally, from a central server, and that means they'd have to build the scalability for all zillion users instead of distributing across the users.

    So, why use it? Right now, the time invested in compensating for 1 & 2 outweigh the price involved to get those one or two good tracks off of each CD. Moving to the pay model, it becomes much less compelling.

    I've said it before, and I'll say it again: record companies, I'll buy your MP3s if you make quality rips, have a large enough selection, provided at an affordable price, accurately titled, permanently located on a fast and stable server so I can link/bookmark it, and without any Draconian attempts to restrict fair use. That's the value that the record companies can best provide.

    Guess what? Napster and this pay model can co-exist! If I really want a good rip, or get the whole album, I'll go pay. If I just want to sample, or don't mind taking extra time, I can go to Napster. I wish these dumb-ass companies would wake up already... I mean, this was obvious to me about one hour after using Napster.

  • First, it's still the issue of that without paying anything, most average joes would not use napster because they feel they may be violating the law, so even if it was based on Napster code but didn't have the fee, I don't think people would use it.

    I think that 50 million users is a pretty accurate snapshot of people. And with a base that size, surely there are some "average joes" in there. And once it's converted to a pay service affiliated with a variety of labels., ostensibly, it will no longer be illegal stigma that goes with it, or in worry of being so. Or at least eventually the the number of legal songs may approach 50% or more...
  • Interesting, but what if that quality tag also included the file name? That way only a specific format of file names would be used. Searching would be easier and once you have your song it could be changed to whatever you want provided you don't try to upload it to somebody else because the tag would be checked for security reasons. It works for me....

  • But all this meant was that the creators/musicans of the songs never got to see a cent from all that downloading, which I know a good majority felt was wrong (yet some still continued to use napster).

    What makes you think the artists will get anything now? There's nothing in existing artist's contracts about royalties from downloads, is there? Don't fall for that one.

    Now Napster's going to a *SMALL* fee ($5/mnth is a bargain!) for unlimited, legal access to a good library of music

    Good library of music? Sheesh I still haven't found anything on Napster that was encoded properly. Now I have to pay for some teenager's poor rip?

    The only solution will be to have the label itself distribute the music, which will then turn Napster into another client/server architecture, why not just use web pages and sell passwords to the web pages? Amazon could set up an MP3 page with paid access. For-a-fee napster is obsolete before it gets of the ground, in my opinion!

  • Oh yeah, Gnutella was just so successful. Open source isn't gonna kill napster. Napster will kill napster if they start charging a subscription fee.

    Also, I don't understand how this will help Edel. Napster is purely a distribution system. Its not a marketing system. So the big record labels will still own the attention span of consumers, and that's all they need. Therefore, its not a panacea to new or unknown artists at all.

  • i presume you are suggesting that the ripper doesn't need to pay anything for the mp3 from the record company. Doesn't that make your system illegal? If not, how do you come up with the 2-3 cents / download figure?
  • What was Metallica's final view on it after all the hooplah they caused?

    That's an interesting question. I'd like to see Slashdot do a second interview with the band. How about it, guys?

  • It's not free. And it's completely illegal, but it's there, and the opennap SERVERS don't/wont try to charge for their illegal service (or try to make it legal). So I (like all the other napster users) will abuse this until it's taken down and we're all forced to use freenet or something like it.
  • When there are FREE and better alternatives, yes it IS a stupid idea.
  • ""We welcome Napster's commitment to protect the interests of artists, songwriters and other rights holders through their new business model, and we will support any activity that provides for fair compensation for everyone involved. " Translates to "We understand that Napster and other sharing utilities are not going to go away and if we don't accept them we are basically going to be left by the wayside". Finally a company willing to take a chance on actually using this service instead of just complaining about it. Albeit they may not be in the best of financial standing but maybe that is what it took to get them to realize that here is the bandwagon now get on. Don't know about the rest of you but if I was a musician or a record company and I could get the music out to 50 million people relativly cheaply should there even be any thought. Just my opinion
  • I'm not pretending, you really are stupid. I said, I KNOW ITS ILLEGAL, AND, I know it's not OK, BUT. It's OK with _me_ and all of the napster users, and anyone who has downloaded an mp3 of a commercial song. This isn't bullshit, these are facts, you may have a problem with it, tough shit. Good for you if you can stop it happening.

    And, no I wouldn't be O.K with it, but that isn't what I said is it now?

  • Correct. 2Step is *another* musical (term used very loosely) genre, not an artist.

    However, in London it's only popular with Boy Racers [boyracers.org.uk] and their ilk, or pre-pubescent boy-band worshippers.

    I think it's popularity is due to the reluctance of the above music buying public to let go of the dance music culture that started in the late 80's in London.

    IMO, Enough already!

    ----------------------------


  • Napster Spoofed [antioffline.com]

  • This won't solve the problem (Score:3)

    by fhwang ( 90412 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @06:14AM (#535323) Homepage
    There are a lot of people who'd be willing to pay $5/month to use Napster, at first. The problem is that to justify that cost, Napster will need to continually innovate to stay ahead of the free, open-source competition, and they seem to incapable of doing so. Of course, the idea of Napster itself is world-changingly innovative, but what have they done to maintain the software since then? All I've seen them add in the past year is the ability to exclude search terms with the minus sign. For God's sake, the bloody Napster icon is still messed up on my WinNT client.

    On the other hand, go over to SourceForge [sourceforge.net] and do a search for Napster to see how many people are trying to build on the idea. It's only a matter of time before:

    1. Napster gets fat and complacent on its subscription fees, and lets its quality of service fall to shit
    2. Some hacker adds some great new feature to some part of the system, and tells eir friends about it
    3. Napster is blissfully ignorant of the feature, or just ignores the feature, hoping it will never catch on
    4. The feature catches on, tons of people switch over to the open-source alternative
    5. The easy revenue stream for musicians disappears again.
    So a fee from Napster won't solve it. Once again, I feel obliged to point to the Street Performer Protocol [counterpane.com] as a way around this: It offers a way for artists to be paid for their work, without forcing any arbitrary controls on the methods of distribution.
  • The "big thing" about Napster was that people could share songs (legally or illegally). Now that Napster will provide songs for a fee -- they won't be providing it on my site, or John's site.. The music will be sitting on their servers. That won't be "Napster" any more, but "Amazon.com", except you download what you buy, instead of having it shipped.

    Changing Napster into something else preserves the name, but nothing else.. :(
  • I guess you have to admire Napster's Microsoft-like tactics.

    First, they get public backing by giving everyone easy access to unlimited free music.

    Then they gain the attention of the music industry.

    They basically tell the music industry (in actions, not words) "We could potentially put you out of business by killing your profits".

    Major recording companies decide that if they can't beat them, they'll join them.

    Honestly, what is more brilliant than a teenage kid developing a product that puts the industry in the palm of his hand?
    ---
    seumas.com

  • I don't agree, for two reasons. First, it's still the issue of that without paying anything, most average joes would not use napster because they feel they may be violating the law, so even if it was based on Napster code but didn't have the fee, I don't think people would use it. (You also have to consider that the average joe knows squat about how to find and use open-source projects -- if it didn't come from tucows, where did it come from?). The other issue is the legal force that is RIAA -- you'd be naive to think if they don't have their lawyers working out a way to take down freenet, gnutella, and any other open source project if/when the material traded starts to heavily impinge on RIAA earnings. Any open source solution that does bypass the fee of Napster, in addition, will be further shot down (and IMO, they have every right to take such actions). But in this latter case, it boils down to the game of whack-a-mole, as taking down one open-source project may create 2 more.

  • I also submitted this article, so I can't really think of much to say that wouldn't be duplicating the thoughts of he who's submission was not rejected. I guess I can just direct you to my site [neotope.com], or more specifically to the page on my site dedicated to the seemingly endless Napster Debate [neotope.com].
  • The whole idea behind the record company is the "trust" that which promotes and pays bands. Granted, they don't pay enough to bands, and I think $20 is ridiculous for the cost of a CD. Charging $5-$10 a month for napster which goes into a large fund (much as the one that exists when you buy blank videotapes...) which pays out to the companies, who then distribute it among the artists. How else would you get it to individual artists? Keep track of them and their locations? impossible!
  • One more reason that Napster might actually end up being worth paying for. Now if I could only get more than 10% of my download attempts to do something other than time out...
  • ok, it's not about news over Napster, but how it works. Yes, Napster is a Peer to Peer sevice, BUT it's index is centralized. In order to get access to the other peers you have to logon on a Napster server, which contains the index of logged users. So if Napster wants to charge users is just a question of charging the index access. To charge for download of specific artists material is a more complicated issue, in my point of view there are a few options
    • setting up a server (which would act like a peer) make the songs available from there and register users who dowloaded it
    • monitoring users activities to see if they are downloading songs from registred artists
    • making available songs which need some kind of signature or authentication to play, and them charging for those keys
    No one of that options are efficient and reliable, so I'm also curious to find whow did them made it possible against a system which is not designed for that.

  • how will fee Napster work? (Score:3)

    by iso ( 87585 ) <slash@warpzero[ ]fo ['.in' in gap]> on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @06:41AM (#535331) Homepage

    ok, i haven't been following the Napster news all that closely as i prefer less mainstream music [bangingtunes.com], but i'd like to know if anybody can answer this: how will fee-based Napster work?

    Napster is a P2P (kinda) filesharing service. when Napster implements their fee-based service (presumeably with "legitimate" material on it), what will be the difference between Napster and, say, an FTP site? i assume it will no longer be P2P, right? (or at least, the "illegal" stuff will not be on the P2P section anymore).

    so is it basically going to be like an FTP site that you search through the Napster client? if so, what the hell's the point? why not just make it a web-based service? i guess the "point" will be that clueless people are getting used to using "Napster" to get files, and would like to continue using it that way. still, it seems silly to use this "Napster" protocol and proprietary client to do soemthing that would be better served by exisiting technologies.

    now again, i haven't been following Napster too closely, but some please: enlighten me!

    - j

  • this is purely speculation.
    I'm just thinking out loud.

    The battles are not over.

    Monopoly stays the same,
    only the faces are different.

    Napster taking over where RIAA left?

    What happens when all the labels are gathered, again in Napster.

    What is the difference?

    One major.org milking the cows, just as now and before?

    Is it to stay free, or is it just another internet marketing stunt, pulled off to gather the caddle for feeding them up before snagging the hooters.
  • But let's say that all the other RIAA companies jump on with BMG and the $5/mnth service continues with lots of sign-upers. At $5/mnth, that's about equal to 3 to 5 CDs a YEAR in terms of price, and I know that's a bargain.

    There are a few problems with this, which would make much less than the bargain that you make it out to be.

    First of all, consider what you are getting. This is a relative term, something that varies from user to user. The fact of the matter is, not everyone has high-speed internet access, and most people couldn't have that access even if they wanted to, because of availability in their area. I live in Springfield, MA, about a mile outside my local DSL carrier's range, and about 500 yards from the Wilbriham/Springfield border. My ex-girlfriend's brother works for the DSL provider and he said there are currently no plans to extend the range of availability any sooner than a year from now. In Springfield there is no cable broadband access, but I see houses from my bedroom window where there is cable broadband. Again, plans don't call to extend it for at least a year.

    So here I am, chugging along at a whopping 5.2k/s max, 3.5k/s on average (that is the record I've seen on my own system, at 3am on a Sunday night) and Napster wants me to pay $5 a month for rights to BMG's music. On my modem, I can download about 3-5 songs (128kbps quality) an hour, assuming I have no ISP disconnects (rare), no transfer errors through Napster (even more rare), and I do not do anything else with the internet (because even surfing /. uses valuable bandwith). So even if I download those 4 songs an hour, it will take me 3-4 hours to download some of the newest records. But this is not realistic. Speaking from experience, it can take me up to a week to download an entire CD off of Napster. Now all of you who have broadband can smile and say $5/month is great, because you can download a CD an hour on a bad day (my friend from Wilbriham takes about twenty minutes for a full CD). But for someone like me (and believe me, I'm not alone) it is a much bigger deal. For $5 a month, if I spend an hour or two every day exclusively downloading music with my bandwith, I can only get between 3 and 5 CDs a month. For someone with broadband, that number becomes 7 CDs a week (1 hour per CD, 7 days a week), and 25-35 CDs a month. Who's getting the bigger bargain there?

    Also consider quality. I'm downloading 128kbps songs, because I simply can't afford the 192s and the 320s I've seen lately are unthinkable. Now most people will say they can't hear the difference. But some people can. Believe me, the quality gap between 128 and 320 is HUGE. But then again, so is the file size. At up to 3 times the size of a 128, 320s are just too "expensive" for me to download. That would cut my downloads/month in half, at least, if not in thirds. So rather than getting 3-5 CDs worth of noticeably less-than-CD-quality music every month, I can get 1 or 2 at near-CD-quality. But again, for broadband it's different. Even if the MP3s were 5 times the size of a 128 (file sizes at 5 megs per minute of sound), the average broadband user could, at 1 hour a day, 7 days a week, download 5-7 CDs worth at very high sound quality. Again, who is getting the bargain?

    So what's the solution? Maybe there should be modulating access fees based on your modem speed. If you're downloading at 60k/s, pay $5 a month. If you're downloading at 4k/s, shouldn't the fee be proportionately lower? Something like 33-50 cents a month (it may seem silly, but it's more realistic than $5 a month for everyone)? I'll tell you flat out, the same reason I won't pay for Napster is the same reason I won't pay for EQ or Ash's Call or UO, etc: the price they charge is simply not worth the frustration of lag, low transfer rates, and high packet loss. Maybe broadband will change my tune. But for now I for one will find other alternatives to the new Napster.

    -Forager.

  • Or possibly it's crap.
    Craig David is only "big" in the garage scene because he did that re-e-wind song with artful dodger (which was a fairly dull song). All his other stuff is cheesy porn for 7year olds.

    Was 2Step the band that did that shit song with Posh spice and that wanker from some boy band no-one cared about 6 years ago?

    Now there was an unoriginal song if ever I heard one.

    Quite frankly, if they sink, I'll not be at the funeral.
  • Here's an article about the history/development of garage by the author of Generation Ecstasy http://members.aol.com/blissout/2step.htm
  • Even if the MP3s were 5 times the size of a 128 (file sizes at 5 megs per minute of sound)

    There's no point in using MP3 when you're at 600kbps. At that point, you can just take raw 1200kbps audio CD data and use lossless compression to get it to ~600kbps.

    Ten years from now, few people will remember what mp3 was.

  • By 'participate' they mean 'give us their bandwidth for free, so we can charge users for it'.

    --
  • Naturally the ripper owns the cd and thus can make any mp3s from it that s/he wants. The proceeds should, ideally, go partially to the RIAA to shut them up, but in any case if napster can start charging fees, why can't the uploaders get compensated as well?
  • I'm also european AND I never heard of them either... On the other hand, Napster (or MP3 in general, since there are more ways to distribute them) made me discover "new" (as in "unknown to me") artists and music styles (recommended by other people) AND I've bought some CDs as a concequence. So "the record companies" earned money from Napster trough me :-)

  • Napster can go to hell (Score:3)

    by Ka0s ( 134504 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @04:14AM (#535340) Homepage
    Sellouts.. I know I wont be paying for napster. Thats for damn sure.. besides, theres all those opennap servers ... :)
  • I think I'll just wait until those tracks show up on the dark, seedy side of Napster. No need to abase myself for paying for something I can steal!

  • How would like your death? (Score:3)

    by Bojay Iverson ( 261262 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @04:16AM (#535342)
    At least Edel have a varied and interesting catalog(with the exception of Craig David). What does Sony have that you would hold out for? Michael Jackson?

  • Before you all start bitching & moaning... (Score:3)

    by Siqnal 11 ( 210012 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @04:19AM (#535343) Homepage
    Read the FAQ: [napster.com]

    Will Napster continue to offer a free service?

    Yes! We are committed to creating a system in which users can choose to participate without paying any money.



    --

  • This is nothing new.... (Score:3)

    by NTSwerver ( 92128 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @04:16AM (#535344) Journal

    ..."Phonics Cat" have pioneered releasing their material [bbspot.com]straight to the public via Napster, with dire consequences!

    ----------------------------
  • How long will it be now that Napster has commercialized itself, that it'll end up on F*ckdCompany [fuckedcompany.com]. Does anyone even use Napster anymore last I checked most of my friends were ditching it after lenghty complaints of not being able to access songs the way they once did.

    According to the prior posting here as well which states most Napster (l)users actually purchased more music, do folks over at BMG [bmg.com] still make it to be the devils tool or are they hoping to ride the coattails and make up the money I forsee them losing?

    What was Metallica's final view on it after all the hooplah they caused? I haven't read much about the mention of the two after trials either. Do they see it as a good thing now that royalties may be heading down the way or did commercialism butter their attitude and bring forth Napster in a whole new light?

    FreeBSD Spoofed [antioffline.com]

  • Napster issues (Score:4)

    by mirko ( 198274 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @04:17AM (#535346) Journal
    Yesterday evening and this morning (MET/GMT+1) I filled Napster form in order to get my GPL'd music [tompox.com] available for free to the whole Napster Community.
    I also use it as a test in order to know whether I can trust them for a more ambitious project [gnuart.org].
    After clicking the submit button, I got a form to print, to fill and sign and to fax them in order to activate my account.
    I tried many times to fax it but their device never answered.
    How surprising, my entry was added.
    I believe I could have filled the HTML form with Metallica's name and Lars Ulrich as contact.
    Of course, I could have easily been caught "la main dans le sac" but there's still a problem, here.
    --

  • How Long until (Score:3)

    by bmongar ( 230600 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @04:21AM (#535347)

    How long until some small or new music labels decide to distribute music on the non-fee based Napster service as a matter of business, like distributing to radio stations? If someone can show more profits by using napsters free music distribution as adds for cd how long until money hungry RIAA lables join in.

  • The great thing about Napster is that the end user can try before they buy the music. That means I can be 100% sure that I'm buying quality music.

    But now they want you to subscribe to a service where you can download any of their songs for a flat fee? So what happens when I actually LIKE the song and want to buy the CD? Will I get a coupon so that I only pay for the cost of the CD (I've already paid for the song).

    Here is my prediction. Napster will "sell out" to the industry. Suddenly, all of their users will get a message or something telling them they must now pay a fee. The users will simply switch to gnutella, or something else. And guess what? The recording industry will have won,... they will have shut down Napster.

    Here's what Napster should do. When someone sends them a lawsuit, they need to reply with a firm middle finger. Because Napster has done nothing wrong, has broken no law, and should not be bullied into these agreements.

    Personally, I'd be willing to donate some money to keep Napster going, but I will not subscribe to a "service".

  • From the article:

    > Edel, which recently reported poor results and cut its 2000 earnings forecast, [...]

    So, just maybe, Edel don't have that much to lose. I can see the big boys watching to see what happens; will they sink or will they swim?

    Just my very cynical 0.02 widgets.

    Mike
  • it's a style of Garage originating from the UK, demonstrated by Craig David & Artful Dodger. IMO, it's pretty lame but it seems popular in London. They liked Bobby Brown and all that swingbeat crap though.
  • MTV2 in the UK played Radiohead's Kid A in it's entirety before release. With it being broadcast over digital satellite, it wouldn't have been to hard to snag a copy to MiniDisc or similar. People still bought the album though.

Slashdot Top Deals

Quantity is no substitute for quality, but its the only one we've got.

Close