Napster was such an improvement over what it replaced, but, it’s funny by today’s standards Napster was so “basic”. I remember waiting 3+ hours for a single song to download. Then discovering it wasn’t what I wanted but a troll who renamed the `Barney The Dinosaur I love you` song. Then I’d spend another 3+ hours downloading a different song. Ah 56k internet, what fun. Today, TPB and a quick search can give you an ar…
Quality? I can rarely find FLAC files.
Napster sparked a file-sharing revolution 25 years ago
171–180 of 350 posts
Re: Napster sparked a file-sharing revolution 25 years ago
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed. Many of these pirates are the most devoted fans of the music they store and distribute. They go to gigs, buy merchandise and vinyl editions, and otherwise support the artists directly. In contrast companies like Spotify don’t care about the music at all. They would just as well sell you white noise if it would somehow give them the slightest improvement in growth or margins. Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify, regular…
Spotify might not care as much about the music and the artists as pirates, but they sure pay the artists more.
Barely. Some artists outright tell you to pirate their music since most of their money comes from touring/merch.
Re: Napster sparked a file-sharing revolution 25 years ago
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Presumably if you're pirating music you aren't "completely detached" from the music - otherwise why would you do it?
In the early 80s, the local pirate scene in my hometown revolved around a guy who I'll call George. George's entire basement was devoted to boxes full of diskettes (5 1/4" in those days) of pirated software and photocopied documentation. All kinds of software - games, office apps, scientific stuff, you name it. Some was downloaded from BBS's but the majority of it was shipped USPS from god knows who.
Thing is, he used virtually none of it. He collected software for the sake of collecting it. He didn't even play video games, just loaded them up once to make sure they ran. He was a hoarder basically, who had stumbled into a niche hobby, and like most hobbyists he would happily share it with anyone who asked.
I'm not saying every pirate is like that, or even most, but I am saying, I don't think the pirate scene works without people like that. The music fans are spokes, but people who do it for the sake of doing it are the hubs.
Re: Napster sparked a file-sharing revolution 25 years ago
#174Buying music (singles or albums) was super expensive in 1999. It was unfair for listeners as well as artists. Napster suddenly made it 'free'. I remember thinking, if CD's were not so ridiculously expensive and i could pick the songs on it, i would just buy them instead of spending money on data traffic time/bandwidth. Today, we pay much less and the artists are still paid, while we can choose exactly what to listen…
The "long tail" artists are paid a lot less. Even if you listen to Frog Eyes all day, every day most of your Spotify subscription is going to Taylor Swift.
Re: Napster sparked a file-sharing revolution 25 years ago
#175Napster was such an improvement over what it replaced, but, it’s funny by today’s standards Napster was so “basic”. I remember waiting 3+ hours for a single song to download. Then discovering it wasn’t what I wanted but a troll who renamed the `Barney The Dinosaur I love you` song. Then I’d spend another 3+ hours downloading a different song. Ah 56k internet, what fun. Today, TPB and a quick search can give you an ar…
> And they’re so good at it, that the pirated product is usually substantially better than the official version How so, when most of these products are digital to begin with? If you have the quality of the studio master, then there’s nothing to improve.
I am into Jazz, and would like to buy Ella Fitzgerald's discography. No website will easily let me do that. Pirates do.
Re: Napster sparked a file-sharing revolution 25 years ago
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presumably if you're pirating music you aren't "completely detached" from the music - otherwise why would you do it?
In the early 80s, the local pirate scene in my hometown revolved around a guy who I'll call George. George's entire basement was devoted to boxes full of diskettes (5 1/4" in those days) of pirated software and photocopied documentation. All kinds of software - games, office apps, scientific stuff, you name it. Some was downloaded from BBS's but the majority of it was shipped USPS from god knows who. Thing is, he use…
For the hoarders that don’t share, I don’t really see much of an issue. Sure, they have all that stuff, but they would have never bought it. It’s not actually a lost sale.
Re: Napster sparked a file-sharing revolution 25 years ago
#177When I look at the personalities who made a name for themselves in corporate piracy.. err.. file sharing, I keep noticing some of the people who've contributed a lot to the current suckage in tech.
Re: Napster sparked a file-sharing revolution 25 years ago
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could copy a book, and sell it. This was a big part of the Protestant revolution; the Catholic church didn't want the common people reading the Bible, but back then they had no legal way to control how people used the printing press.
The Bible is not copyrighted. So you could still do that today. Also I‘m pretty sure the catholic church wanted no one to read the Luther Bible. Neither common people nor others ;)
The copyright to the King James Version is owned by the crown.
Re: Napster sparked a file-sharing revolution 25 years ago
#179And now rock stars who were once as rich as, well, rock stars, are largely forced to get by on a pittance from either Spotify or YouTube. It used to be that there were hundreds of stars getting rich. Now there's Taylor Swift and... I can't name anyone else. But, hey, the quasi-communists who thought they were somehow liberating the music from the evil rich people ended up dragging all of the music industry down into…
This is why we have DRM -- and need more.
DRM is done by elected officials, usually parliamentarians.
Whenever it's not elected individuals or institutions doing it, it's called tyranny or vigilantism.
Re: Napster sparked a file-sharing revolution 25 years ago
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Ah 56k internet, what fun. Unless you were young and on a college/university campus where your dorm room probably had Ethernet jacks.
>> Ah 56k internet, what fun. > your dorm room probably had Ethernet jacks. One 64k T1 channel, so 14% more fun. Okay to be fair the modem was probably averaging closer to 32k so double the fun.
> One 64k T1 channel, so 14% more fun.
Except if you were sharing between all the students in the dorm and on campus.