The Rise and Fall of Napster 297
Jedi Paramedic writes "Boston.com has an interesting story about the rise and fall of everyone's favorite file-swapping service. Also the subject of a new book by Joseph Menn, the story goes into great detail about the unfortunate-but-heroic Shawn Fanning and his reluctance to admit that his uncle, who in the end masterminded little more than the lining of his own pockets, had taken advantage of him. From getting screwed in the original 70/30 split with his uncle to his uncle's refusal to loosen his iron grip on the company even at the expense of its very being, the article (and the book) go a long way in chronicling the rise and fall of Napster, and crediting Shawn for not airing the family's dirty laundry. An interesting and well-written read."
Good technolgy, bad media (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good technolgy, bad media (Score:2)
Go calculate [webcalc.net] something.
Re:Good technolgy, bad media (Score:2)
Repeat after me: fuck MD5.
MD5 is flawed.
Use SHA-1 instead.
Or better yet (some say), TigerTree.
All of which Gnutella uses.
Re:Good technolgy, bad media (Score:3, Insightful)
So really, fuck MD5 only if you're trying to make something secure against attackers.
Re:Good technolgy, bad media (Score:2)
Re:Good technolgy, bad media (Score:2)
Security for the sake of security is just as stupid as no security.
Daniel
Re:Good technolgy, bad media (Score:5, Informative)
MD5 is flawed
Given known current flaws in MD5, it is possible to produce bogus data that matches a given MD5, though no constraints can be placed upon the content. A trojan, for instance, cannot be placed in a MD5'd file, but the file can contain random data.
However, one of the fairly obvious ways to use MD5 is with a "tree" of checksums -- one for the whole file, one for each half, one for each quarter, etc, etc, etc. In this case, it is not possible to produce data that will pass validation.
eDonkey uses MD4 hashes -- which is significantly easier to attack than MD5 -- yet I haven't seen problems with forged chunks on eDonkey.
And while SHA-1 is nice -- and it might be just easier if everyone used it -- it is significantly slower. When I tested the md5sum and shasum implementations on my Linux box, I found that shasum ran at about a sixth the speed of md5sum.
Re:Good technolgy, bad media (Score:2)
Guess I missed this one - what's your source?
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Technology Abused, Good Media, and Misconceptio (Score:2)
Because most of them are wildly inefficient. BitTorrent is not uncommonly used for large-scale legitimate large file distribution among the tech-savvy now, and eDonkey is similarly useful.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Technology Abused, Good Media, and Misconceptio (Score:2)
Daniel
Re:Technology Abused, Good Media, and Misconceptio (Score:3, Interesting)
IRC (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, both were innovative but I doubt either would exist as the did/do now if it wasn't for IRC coming first. To an
Re:Good technolgy, bad media (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course he credits Shawn... (Score:5, Funny)
I'll skip the article, thanks, in favor of (Score:3, Funny)
Seriously, doesn't this seem a little like 'great expectations' or something (only problem being I'm not sure if GE got made into an musical or if I'm getting it confused with something else.
Magwitch Did It! (Score:3, Funny)
In all seriousness, GE sucked. I'd write a longer review, but this about sums it up.
Re:I'll skip the article, thanks, in favor of (Score:2)
Daniel
Amazon Reviews (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Amazon Reviews (Score:2)
Nice how each is "A reader" from some place in california. Didn't even attempt to place a name behind their statements.
Since when are AC posts "spotlight" reviews
sure... (Score:4, Insightful)
cheers,
Re:sure... (Score:2, Funny)
yes, i am on a 56k modem, thank you BT.....
Re:sure... (Score:2)
Re:sure... (Score:2)
And BT still stick broadband advertisments through the door even though they dont offer it anywhere within 70 mile of here.
Re:sure... (Score:3, Interesting)
-- iCEBaLM
Re:sure... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:sure... (Score:2)
I know I had always thought that way, even back into the BBS days and the local warez BBS's.
-- iCEBaLM
Excuse my ignorance... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Excuse my ignorance... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Excuse my ignorance... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Excuse my ignorance... (Score:2)
Re:Excuse my ignorance... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Excuse my ignorance... (Score:5, Interesting)
What if the music industry had purchased napster and released their full catalogs for free but ripped at a low bit rate say 96kb and then offer a pay version for the same data but ripped at a 320kb rate. No one could have competed because they would of had the depth of inventory. Lost opportunities. They went the other way and crushed Napster and they totally lost it by not having something to pick up the slack. Where did they think that the Napster users were going to turn when an option (Kazaa, Bearshare, et al) arrived. Lost opportunities.
No he's not (Score:2)
Re:Excuse my ignorance... (Score:2)
Why would they buy Napster? All the record industry had to do was release their catalogs on a convenient pay site (which they still haven't really done.) Napster's "innovation" (which wasn't patented) was useful, but hardly necessary for this business.
All Napster really had was a name, and the public demonstrated that they were willing to go elsewhere for free music.
Re:Excuse my ignorance... (Score:2)
You, sir, are missing the point. Why get shit-quality copies of music for free from Napster, when a different p2p service would offer sales-quality copies of music for free?
Duhhhhhhhh
Re:Excuse my ignorance... (Score:3, Insightful)
Because there's a point for many people (not all) where paying a reasonable fee for a 'legit', reliably-good datafile, is much more convenient than spending the time and effort to sift through multiple p2p networks full of unknowns.
Of course, even if the per-track and/or monthly fee was reasonable (not in this life), I'd still have a major problem filtering my money
Re:Excuse my ignorance... (Score:2, Insightful)
That is something that many people forget or don't realize. This is exactly what I would want from the music companies. I'm not a starving student anymore: I have plenty of money to spend on CDs, but I want to be able to conveniently preview what I hear so the money isn't wasted
When you get the book... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:When you get the book... (Score:2, Funny)
Sometimes, when I'm feeling particularly criminal, I go to the bookst^H^H^H^H^H^H local pirate's den and read the book without paying for it!
Actually my local bookst^H^H^H^H^H theft haven has awfully comfortable chairs and a coffee shop. I think they actually WANT you to sit and read books without paying for them. I feel sorry for the CHUMPS that actually take their books to the checkout counter.
Re:When you get the book... (Score:2)
*grin*
Napster as the internet martyr (Score:5, Funny)
Now, if we could just form a religion based upon the cat-like diety, perhaps we could defeat the DMCA as a form of freedom of Religion
Who is everyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Audiogalaxy was far superior in every way. It's a damn shame they got shut down. I think AG's model and design is the best starting point for the music industry to get into a paid-for music downloading service.
Unlike Napster, it just worked. I didn't have to sit around to make sure the download started and that I didn't get cut off, and I didn't have to find other sources. I just queued up as many tracks as I wanted, and AG made sure I got them.
Re:Who is everyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who is everyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
For $10 a month you could use Listen.com. As long as ya pay that, you have access to any song of their library. plus playlists etc. It's like a server-side MP3 locker, only they're all there. Click a song and you're listening to it within moments instead of having to wait for it to download. (then it caches so it's not like you go through that every time...)
Not a bad deal. It's not quite perfect in that you don't get to keep the compressed version and it's Windows only. Oh well, it's not for everybody. Still, $10 is less than one CD per month.
I'm thinking about writing up a review of it for Slashdot, but I'm concerned about whether there'd be any interest in it.
Re:Who is everyone? (Score:2)
Tim
Re:Who is everyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
giFT, Kazaa, Shareazaa and all the bullshit these days is a test of patience.
Re:Who is everyone? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:My Audiogalaxy story. (Score:4, Funny)
Free Joe (Score:2)
Too big (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Too big (Score:2, Interesting)
With something like Kazaa these days, I do NOT get anywhere close to the same results when I search for obscure bands, and at least 75% of the files never start downloading, because the people likely have sharing turned off.
Kazaa can be wonderful in the way that you can even download something fr
A bit rosy-tinted (Score:2)
Uh...Napster wasn't going to succeed as a company, regardless of whether he or his uncle was running things.
From A Roxio Press Release.... (Score:5, Interesting)
"The opportunity to sell GoBack comes at a great time for Roxio as it provides an opportunity to add to our cash balances and divest an asset that is not core to our digital media strategy," said Chris Gorog, President and Chief Executive Officer of Roxio. "This transaction will enable us to bring an even greater focus to our digital media software business and the development of our new on-line music business with our Napster assets. Symantec is currently one of GoBack's largest marketing partners and it is the logical and best new home for GoBack and its customers."
A quick synopsis of the whole thing- (Score:5, Informative)
No file sharing system should be... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:No file sharing system should be... (Score:5, Interesting)
And I always thought this would be
the land of milk and honey
Oh but I came to find out that it's
all hate and money
And there's a canopy of greed holding me down.
--Blind Melon, Tones of Home
Incidentally, I never would have found out about Blind Melon without P2P file sharing, and now I've bought two of their three albums (with Soup high on my to-get list). File sharing makes people less likely to buy music? The RIAA can eat me!
Re:No file sharing system should be... (Score:2, Insightful)
That's fine if what you want to share belongs to you. Sharing what belongs to someone else is a bit more problematic. Many college students "shared" bandwidth that belonged to the university, dragging down system performance for others. Not to mention "sharing" the work of others.
>K
Memories of Napster (Score:4, Funny)
- Same with the Wozard of Iz - AFTER I bought it on eBay...
- Getting Camarillo Brillo after finding it ONLY on a box set for $70 (thanks Frank)
- Getting cursed out by dorks for cutting their dls off (which I never did) - then putting them on ignore
and at the end...
- watching as a series of mesaages from emusic came up demanding I remove the following 12 songs or get kicked off.
- Screwing up and removing them all but one.
- Getting kicked off.
Re:Memories of Napster (Score:2, Funny)
Ozzy_and_Dweezil-Stayin_Alive-VERY_VERY_VERY_
that would come up no matter what search you did.
The Irony? (Score:4, Insightful)
What a surprise... (Score:2)
Well it's good to finally see the details behind his con.
The myth the media giants want to perpetuate. (Score:3, Interesting)
"...an internet culture that enthusiastically stood centuries-old notions of property rights and demand-and-supply pricing firmly on its head..."
This is farcical. The concept of making obscene amounts of money from artistic expression; indeed, the concept of art as property, is a very recent invention, since 1900 or so. This is what the media conglomerates want you to forget. Napster simply reminded us of how things were a very short while ago.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Shawn Fanning was heroic? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Shawn Fanning was heroic? (Score:2)
Not to mention that the CD's still had value, seeing as how the RIAA doesn't sell singles of every song on every album. Frankly, Napster was about as harmful as radio. If people were using Napster to save money, then how come $400 iPods are popular? $400 buys you a pretty good number of CDs.
No, mp3/oggs still an issue (Score:2)
Except that radio provides a wildly different service than Napster does. When it can feed you high-quality audio pre-broken up into tracks, where the DJ doesn't speak at the beginning and end of the track with the CD and track information inserted, and gives you whatever specific track you might want on demand *then* radio is comparable to Napster. Napster is far more able than radio to replace a CD purchase.
If people were using Napster to save money, the
Re:Shawn Fanning was heroic? (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's where you're wrong. You are enjoying the fruits of someone else's labors, namely that of the artist, the producer, the sound mixer, the recording booth operator, the marketing company, and all the secretaries, managers, and janitors that work for the above companies. They all work for a living, and they get paid when people buy the music that you just stole.
That's right, you stole it. You now have something you didn't have before, and you didn't pay for it. Copyright law says you have to pay for it. Intellectual property law says you have to pay for it. Common decency says you ought to pay for it. And if the long arm of the law catches you, you can be damn sure they're going to make you pay for it.
Look, you can hate the RIAA/MPAA all you want. I have no love for them at all. I think CD's are ridiculously overpriced, that the companies are gouging us while providing us with horrid content. I think the MPAA's control over the DVD format vis-a-vis region coding, CSS, and Macrovision is one of the most belligerent things a provider can do to a customer. However, none of that gives me the right to steal from them, and it sure as hell doesn't give you any moral credibility to be justifying your theft.
If you had any morals or principles at all, other than your own self satisfaction at someone else's expense, you'd be content to simply boycott the labels you don't agree with and trade music from bands that allow you to legally do so. Instead, you're just content to be a thief, attempting to moralize your actions because it allows you to steal and feel smug about it.
Face it, information is not free, nor will it ever be free unless the owner of that information chooses to make it so. Information is worth whatever the owner wishes to charge for it, and the rarer it is, the more they can charge. If you don't like it, I'm sure there's some nice socialist country somewhere that'd take you in. North Korea, for example.
Re:Shawn Fanning was heroic? (Score:2)
Most talented artists don't make music for the money anyway
Re:Shawn Fanning was heroic? (Score:3, Insightful)
I couldn't agree more. However, the method to combat this business model is to boycott their products. By stealing their product, you are intrinsically admitting that their product has value (at least to you), otherwise you wouldn't do it. You have obtained something of value, yet have given nothing of value in return. This is a one-sided transaction no matter how you look at it.
If the artists don't get the money I would have paid -- boohoo, they can always g
Re:Shawn Fanning was heroic? (Score:2)
That's right, you stole it.
m-w.com:
Steal
1 : to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as an habitual or regular practice.
Property
2 a : something owned or possessed; specifically : a piece of real estate
Copywright Infringement != Theft
Re:Shawn Fanning was heroic? (Score:2)
Here's a test I guarantee you can't equivocate: call up the RIAA legal counsel, tell them that you've just downloaded a copyrighted piece of music without paying for it. Give them your name, your address, and your phone number, and dare them to prosecute you.
If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear, right?
Re:Shawn Fanning was heroic? (Score:2)
Language is important; I was trying to correct the parent for poor language use.
By creating buzzwords and associating 'bad' words with an act, the establishment can sway public opinion. Consider 'pirate', 'thief', etc... they sound much worse than 'copyright infringer'.
Re:law != right (Score:2)
In your argument, you are taking the fruits of labor from someone else but not compensating them for it. Artists/music companies are not slaves, but they do deserve to be paid for their efforts, and like it or not, they have the right to demand whatever wage the
Re:i'm sorry, lets back up for a second... (Score:2)
Re:Shawn Fanning was heroic? (Score:2)
It's like arguing that you didn't murder someone, instead it was manslaughter, or negligent homicide. The end results are the same: someone is dead, and you had something to do with it. Only the punishment differs.
Re:Shawn Fanning was heroic? (Score:2)
When a...web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem...preposterous.
The truth is that the pigopolists that make up the various Asses of America (RIAA, MPAA, etc) own their little piece of the Federal Government. The Asses are the people who literally write the copyright laws and get their bought & paid for politicians to rubber-stamp them into existence.
The larger
Re:Shawn Fanning was heroic? (Score:2)
Nope, no built-in bias there, nosiree. You do realize that these statements sound pretty damn close to things Josef Stalin (a great humanitarian if there ever was one) just a few decades ago.
it is obvious that there is no morally justifiable reason for the state of copyright law as it is today.
What arrogance! My God, how can you keep a straight face and say that?
Re:Shawn Fanning was heroic? (Score:2)
My use of terms such as pigopolist and Asses of America are not prejudegements, but the result of judgement. I have evaluated their actions and based on their behaviour I choose to call them by names more befitting their actions. Just as the PATRIOT Act is extremely anti-patriotic, the names these organizations would prefer to be called by are, judging by their actions, completely inappropriate.
As for the Stalin comment, perhaps you could provide some supporting evi
Re:nice circular logic there. (Score:2)
That falls under the realm of something you can't avoid, and you have no active control over not hearing the music. If you choose to be within aural range of the music and don't wish to wear earplugs, you have to hear it. You don't have a choice in the matter.
Copyright law acknowledges these circumstances under the guise of "fair use", and it's very well doc
Re:oh wait, i thought you wernt a troll for a seco (Score:2)
It has nothing to do with weakness, I assure you, since your argument is the one that cannot be backed in any legal, moral, or realistic fashion. It is my opinion of your thinking skills, which at this point are not anything remotely approaching "respectful".
if you honestly beleive that money is the primary motiv
Re:nice circular logic there. (Score:2)
I agree with this. However, this does not discount that if someone wishes to sell their talents, they have every right to do so. If someone says "I'll play my song for you at your party, but you m
you keep layering broken analagies... (Score:2, Insightful)
...instead of defending the ones we've taken apart.
If someone says "I'll play my song for you at your party, but you must pay me $20 per hour for my time", you're obliged to either pay them or they're not obliged to show up. You cannot take what someone else is offering without paying them what they're asking for it. If you do, you're stealing."
"It is the same way with any human (or group of humans) that has a skill that is in demand. Do you work for free? You must perform some work to pay for your c
Re:Shawn Fanning was heroic? (Score:2, Insightful)
So if I hire you and allow you to work for me for two weeks, but then deny you a paycheck, I haven't stolen anything from you, have I?
Of course I've stolen something from you! I've stolen your time, your effort, and your creativity for my own personal gain, and I've refused to compensate you for it as was agreed before you began work. If I, as an employer, were to do
Re:Shawn Fanning was heroic? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, but that's a poor example. What if no one liked your music? You'd still be broke, even without piracy. Hence, there is no implied contract here. A more realistic example would be if you put on a fireworks display, and charged people to sit on a grassy field and watch. Then, no one came because they all realized that the fireworks would be just as visible from another park that they could sit in for free.
The point that you're trying to make is that it's immoral to enjoy the fruits of someone's labor without compensating them for it. That's true. However, as Ronald Coase posits in his economic theory of externalities, a victim is rarely a simple innocent bystander. Most victims have put themselves in a situation where they will be victimized (Coase's classic example is that of the person who buys a house by an airport; he is a victim of noise pollution, but this is an issue he should have known about when he bought the house). In this case, the musicians are allowing themselves to be victimized by relying on an oudated economic model: profiting from the sale of pre-recorded music. The solution to this problem is not for people to hysterically shout "Stop pirating music!" The solution is to find a new model for the music industry to follow. Most likely, this will mean depending on live performances and merchandising, rather than recordings, for income. It will also likely mean that musicians of the future will have to accept lower incomes, the field will no longer be dominated by a few superstars, but by a larger number of middle class performers and an even larger number of hobbyists.
you need ot lay of the faulty analagies (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Shawn Fanning was heroic? (Score:5, Insightful)
Theft, fraud (hiring someone then not paying), and copyright infringment are three different things. They require different methods of enforcement, and different levels of punishment. If I copy some of my CDs onto my hard drive so I can play them in any order I want, the RIAA may say this is "theft", but I didn't steal anything. If I play CDs on an anti-skip player and I don't pay the RIAA for "RAM buffer copies", I didn't steal anything.
Here is an example of why this line of thinking for copyrights is absurd:
Lets say some bloke writes a song with the phrase "my dog fell down and he can't get up." Let's call him Dogman. The song becomes a #1 hit. In certain situations, people start using the phrase. After a while, Dogman decides using this phrase is "theft", and everyone who does so should pay him $1 each time. Would you pay Dogman just for the "right" to utter a stupid phrase? What if your dog really did fall down and couldn't get up? Should you have to pay so you could tell people?
Yeah, my examples are more marginal than sending copies to 10,000 of your closest "friends". The point is the RIAA uses the term "theft" as newspeak to increase the range of copyright laws. Mass redistribution of music is "theft". Then any CD to tape (or CD) copying is "theft". Then storing your CD on a hard drive for convenience is "theft". Then any sort of "RAM buffer copy" is "theft". Then, any use of any words in any song is "theft".
I think the "information wants to be free" whackos are...well...whackos. If "information" is talking to you, or you think "information" has desires like a sentient being, then you really need to see a doctor. But it doesn't mean everything they say is wrong.
Re:Shawn Fanning was heroic? (Score:2)
Of course, we all know that record companies and artists make all of their money on the ten cent piece of plastic we call a CD.
It's the music that sells. Not the disc.
Re:Shawn Fanning was heroic? (Score:2)
Downloading music, without paying for it, is copyright infringement. It is not theft. It just isn't. Look up the definition of theft. In order to commit therf, or steal something, you must deprive someone of property.
You loose. End of story.
From dictionary.com:
You can talk about what the store car
Re:Shawn Fanning was heroic? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Shawn Fanning was heroic? (Score:2)
No, it just means that the RIAA is more powerful than King John was.
Information wants to be free. Please post CC#. (Score:2)
Re:Where is he now? (Score:2, Interesting)
I met him as one of the contractors they hired to set up the hardware there - dual T1s with a satellite backup, and, believe it or not, DSL lines from every DSL ISP in the area(!) - apparently they're sending something in the order of a million emails every day, or were expecting to by the end of 2002 anyway.
Qui
Re:Where is he now? (Score:4, Informative)
Anyway, he's still in the sf bay area, and has moved on to a couple of new projects: a small record label and a new company that's still very quiet.
Re:Is the name "Napster" racist? (Score:3, Insightful)
It might have been more controversial if Fanning
had played on the nickname in the same style that
was used to market Vanilla Ice (or Eminem to some
regard). But "napster" was not used in any obvious
way other than as a brand for the company/product.
I didn't even know about the nickname connection until
it was mentioned in a 60 minutes interview.
And by then it was the least interesting part of his story.
I don't get insulted when I buy Uncle Bens rice,
Aunt Jemima syrup, or
Re:Is the name "Napster" racist? (Score:2, Insightful)
As for calling someone a nick name based on appearance, I am called "bear" a lot because of my size - nothing the matter wi
PDF Version? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Um.... (Score:3, Informative)
Daniel
Re:unfortunate-but-heroic Shawn Fanning????? (Score:3, Informative)