Napster was by far the most accurate, fast, efficient and one of a kind peer2peer mp3 downloader. I use the word “was” because no one has writen something since the day that we had to pay for it. Suddenly became the “bad” guy on the web, because now everyone has to pay ... Read review
Napster was by far the most accurate, fast, efficient and one of a kind peer2peer mp3 downloader. I use the word “was” because no one has writen something since the day that we had to pay for it. Suddenly became the “bad” guy on the web, because now everyone has to pay for something that it used to be free.
I don’t say that I wasn’t disappointed when I heard that I have to pay for the songs, but I thought ... ...where they want you to get used to it, and then they say that you have to pay. Common sense.
I guess I was lucky because I was one of the 200 people that had the opportunity to use the new Napster. To be honest a friend of mine was a member and so I have the chance to have a look. So one day he gave me his password and I was ready to rock-n-roll.
Why only 200 people?
They wanted to run a pre-test trial to see ... more
Napster was by far the most accurate, fast, efficient and one of a kind peer2peer mp3 downloader. I use the word “was” because no one has writen something since the day that we had to pay for it. Suddenly became the “bad” guy on the web, because now everyone has to pay for something that it used to be free. I don’t say that I wasn’t disappointed when I heard that I have to pay for the songs, but I thought that it was something like demo or free trial software, where they want you to get used to it, and then they say that you have to pay. Common sense.
I guess I was lucky because I was one of the 200 people that had the opportunity to use the new Napster. To be honest a friend of mine was a member and so I have the chance to have a look. So one day he gave me his password and I was ready to rock-n-roll.
Why only 200 people? They wanted to run a pre-test trial to see if there are problems downloading songs. Why? Because there are some changes.
So, let’s see the NEW NAPSTER ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The new Napster has been designed upon the prototype -free- Napster. They have the same “feeling”. Everyone can see others’ files, chat each other, and been able to share your musical preferences with other subscribers. The only problem that I noticed was that there is a minor delay when you want to listen the song that you are downloading. At the other hand the client seem to be more stable than before.
The bigger difference had to do with the nature of the subscription. When you subscribe every user will get a monthly “download counter”. Thus, there is a counter which controls the number of downloads that every user can do within a month. This number in our case was 50, but it will depend on the amount of money that you are willing to pay…more £££ more songs to download.
But this counter has a crucial effect. There were some mindless users who had some songs with faulty file name. That means that if you fully download it then your credit goes down by one song, without taking the song you actually wanted. The good point is that you can listen the song while download it and you can cancel it without losing credits.
Another semantic point I noticed was the existence of two file formats: .nap (napster’s format) and .mp3. Actually mp3 files are the minority in a search result (they are really rare). The nap files are the majority as those files are legal for sharing. In the previous version of Napster, the program was sharing all the mp3 files from your computer’s specific folder. This is not happening with the mp3 files any more. This is because the directories with your mp3 files are been “scanned” and sent as ”fingerprints” in Napster’s servers, without allowing automatic sharing, as they have to review the files and buy the copyrights from the artists. Of course only the Napster’s client can use .nap files
A downside is that there is not any more classification of the music files. So you can not search a song by its musical classification (rock, pop, ethnic…)
~~Price?~~
I was trying to find how much it would cost to subscribe form official lips, but I couldn’t. My friend (some how) had free trial. But it is heard that the price will be around £80 per year for the basic pack (50 songs/month).
~~~Conclusion~~~
The version that I used was the beta-trial- one, but this gave me a feeling on how the new Napster will be. Although at the moment I use Morpheus I will subscribe at Napster when they will launch official the server. That’s not because I have lots of money to spend, but because things get really nasty. Yes, I’m talking about security issues that we do not have. I’m pretty sure that Morpheus will be forced to close and may be re-open as a pay-per-download server in the near future. Until then...happy downloads
Advantages: Great way to preview albums Disadvantages: If it dies then the recording industry will carry on ripping us off
Napster. The very name sends shivers of fear down the spines of record company executives the world over, and smiles of delight to it's users. For those that have never heard of Napster, glad that you've finally come back to Earth from where you have been living.
So what is Napster? It's a form of connecting PCs called peer to peer by many, although this is not strictly true as Napster needs a central server to access the database, for sharing MP3 ... ...computers over a network, which occurs on Napster when you start downloading a music file.
The software itself is very easy to use but I personally found it to be very irritating. Quite frequently I found that downloads disconnected at 99% and refused to complete even though the other user was still active. Also many MP3s were of very poor quality.
Because of the nature of the software, it was in hot water from the very beginning as users started ...
cjkace 07.04.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of napster.com
Advantages: A site where you can get free music; Convenience of music online Disadvantages: New contract with BMG may scare fans away
The Napster's revolution is under way. Who can stop it now that fans all over the world embrace it? Is it the RIAA?
For a few years now, Napster has been facilitating the exchange of person-to-person music files on the Internet. It has managed to cultivate a large community of fans and users who become more and more thirsty for more music files. A lot of observers in the music industry think what Napster has created does not fall short of a revolution ... ...Napster has caught off-guard the old guard as evidenced by the immediate actions taken by the major recording labels. For the longest time, the recording industry sat on their laurels. They thought everything was going well until a Northeastern University dropout, Shawn Fanning, started concentrating on writing music file-sharing software which he called Napster. Then, the rest is just part of music archives. It's a costly type of history too. In ...
digitalshare 30.12.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of napster.com
Advantages: An excellent advertising channel. Free music! Disadvantages: Copyright laws
Now, lets be honest. If YOU were the artist whose records were being shared on Napster, you would probably be a bit pissed off about it. No?
>>> In case you've not been on arth for the past couple of years:
Napster allows a PC user to record CD tracks into "MP3" format (a very compact music/audio storage format) on their hard-disk. It then allows these to be shared over the internet without any form of payment required.
>>> Now consider:
As the ... ...it is entirely possible that a hit single could make 10 sales, each of which is copied 100,000 times through the Napster network, totalling almost 1,000,000 lost sales! Pure speculation, but you don't have to stretch the picture very hard do you?
In fact, what is MORE likely to happen is that a much larger number will sell, and the 1,000,000 Napster copies will prompt a number of sales of the _Album_ release by the same artist, thus leaving the ...
one47 07.07.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of napster.com
Advantages: Brilliant way to obtain free music Disadvantages: Being actively handicapped by the USA high court.
Napster is certainly causing a lot of headline news right now. The mp3 file sharing system has come under attack for not securing the service against copyright fraud. This has meant that people can download copyrighted songs for free - losing the record compnies an estimated revenue in the million pounds mark. It's hard to see how they can arrive at this figure though - but thats what they say.
I personally have used Napster almost a year. Shaun ... ...2million members using its software (this is rapidly increasing - especially with all the headlines it's making!). The site allows you to download some software (which is a relatively small program and downloads quite quickly - even on a 38.8k modem like mine). This software allows you to download MP3 files fgrom other users and visa versa.
It's a good fast site and connection is never normally a problem, although some songs are increasingly giving ...
robsgirl 26.03.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of napster.com
Advantages: Costs nothing Disadvantages: Connection can be dropped easily
Don’t Fancy paying out money for a single?, then why not get it for free!! With one of the most popular program around today, I give you NAPSTER!! After much debate, of whether this firm will be shut down due to the major record companies complaining that there is a drop of sales due to Napster’s availability, and therefore millions of pounds are dropping, however, some may argue that Napster encourages sales, as the user finds out about ... ...this Napster is still the best program for downloading almost any MP3 of your choice, such as punk, rock, pop, garage classical etc, the quality of the sound is also amazing, but however it takes a while for the songs to be downloaded, due to Napter’s servers constantly being flooded by users worldwide.
The use of Napster is easy! All you have to do is type the title of the song of your choice, and the artist, and away you go! Yes, its that ...
CoolCaddy 24.03.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of napster.com
