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Napster sparked a file-sharing revolution 25 years ago

torrentfreak.com

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Re: Napster sparked a file-sharing revolution 25 years ago

#241

Post by Kailhus »

CaptainOfCoit wrote: post #118
smugma wrote: post #113

Paramount+ coming out with a two part documentary June 11 based on a book with the same name, How Music Got Free: https://www.paramountpressexpress.com/paramount-plus/shows/h...

1) What kind of domain is that? Looks like a domain for a tabloid or something 2) It redirects me to https://www.paramountpressexpress.com/location-not-allowed which says "Your geographic location is not allowed access". Here is a mirror for others who happen to not live in the US (or whatever country it's restricted to): https://archive.is/AYgwj

1. Paramount pre sex press obviously! 2. Same here, geo-blocking is the worst.

Re: Napster sparked a file-sharing revolution 25 years ago

#242

Post by [deleted] »

nvarsj wrote: post #29
mmh0000 wrote: post #15

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…

> What I find most strange about the modern day piracy is quality. For a lot of pirates, it's a niche hobby to preserve the best quality version of some media / art. I see it as an underground librarian archivist movement. In 100 years iTunes may be dead, but there will be some person with every album available in high quality lossless FLAC. Same with Netflix and it's bit starved encodes.

[deleted]

Re: Napster sparked a file-sharing revolution 25 years ago

#243

Post by listenallyall »

dasil003 wrote: post #169
listenallyall wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Wait, what? There are so many assumptions packed into this statement. Why should we view things through the lens of whether we are glorifying pirates or not? Is your assertion we should be condemning them? Why? Is it because they are taking bread out of the mouths of musicians? Is it equally bad if Spotify uses their leverage to commoditize and devalue music so musicians can no longer make meaningful money from recor…

First, when someone uses "many" and "most", it indicates they are avoiding "a black and white view," by acknowledging there are some exceptions.

As to the main point, no individual has the right to take someone else's intellectual property (such as songs, movies, books, etc that were often created by large teams of people over months or years) and, without asking any permission, "liberate" that content so that it can be freely copied and consumed by virtually anyone, anywhere, around the world, without recognition or attribution.

The question isn't whether distribution of the work ultimately does or does not benefit the creator(s), which it often does. It's that the "pirate" has no right to independently make the irreversible decision to freely distribute the content.

Re: Napster sparked a file-sharing revolution 25 years ago

#246

Post by [deleted] »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #203
hinkley wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even Lily Allen is worth $4 mill and I only know - and own - one of her songs.

How is someone’s “net worth” determined, especially someone with no significant publicly traded, liquid assets whose ownership is public information?

[deleted]

Re: Napster sparked a file-sharing revolution 25 years ago

#247

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

pavlov wrote: post #222
lotsofpulp wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify loves money so much it has yet to show a profit in almost 20 years.

As long as you can invest in growth, why not spend on that? The alternative is to report a profit and have it taxed. Amazon did the same for a long time. It’s a fine strategy if your investors don’t need the immediate returns.

Amazon invested in selling physical things and ran a loss forever until AWS became the real money maker.

Re: Napster sparked a file-sharing revolution 25 years ago

#248

Post by lotsofpulp »

musicale wrote: post #221
lotsofpulp wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify loves money so much it has yet to show a profit in almost 20 years.

Spotify posted €168M in profit for Q1 2024. But executives loving money is a separate issue from whether the company is profitable or not. Daniel Ek takes no salary but has filed to sell €165M in stock so far in 2024.

Executive compensation is part of a business’s expense, so it is not a separate issue from profit, since profit = revenue minus expense.

Also, Ek could have sold his equity years ago and made more money with less risk by sticking it in SP500. If he really loved money, wouldn’t he have gotten rid of stock in a business losing money and stuck it into something less risky?

My point is to say that Spotify is obviously in a difficult business, given the vendors it has to negotiate with, the competitors it has to compete with, and the customers it has to sell to. It is not some conspiracy or excess short term greed by executives that is hampering its success or ability to pay artists.

Re: Napster sparked a file-sharing revolution 25 years ago

#249

Post by samatman »

39896880 wrote: post #53
sumedh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Jobs was able to use their fear to sign up most publishers on itunes.

And sell outrageously priced MP3 players. There’s no way people were stocking those things with music they paid for.

> no wireless. less space than a nomad. outrageously expensive

Re: Napster sparked a file-sharing revolution 25 years ago

#250

Post by nostrademons »

tithe wrote: post #123
nostrademons wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Napster used a centralized server for indexing but downloads were peer-to-peer. This is what made Napster so awesome on college campuses: you could find anything, but if you chose a local peer, the actual download would happen over the college LAN at godly speeds. Gnutella brought peer-to-peer searches. Basically it used a flood-fill algorithm: your search would be broadcast to all connected peers, which would broadc…

Fun fact: Kazaa's inventors (and their P2P architecture) would later go on to build "Sky peer-to-peer" AKA Skype.

And Napster's co-founder went on to become the first angel investor in Facebook.
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