Online Music Sharing Will cds and cassettes soon become extinct like the 8 track and vinyl records? Well, that very well may become the case due to online music sharing. Music sharing has become the hottest, most popular thing now-a-days for teens and college students across the nation. This innovative idea is now caught in between a war of advocates and anti-advocates, courts have now become involved, which side are you on? I don’t know about you but I’m all for the online music sharing. I’m for it simply because I am one who doesn’t have a lot of time to go review and listen to cd’s to hear their potential. I am a very busy person, and I am always on the run so I don’t have the time to go to the record store and buy whole cd’s or the singles which is one of the pros of online music sharing. Online sharing is an excellent way to preview music before one would decide to buy it because if there aren’t any songs that aren’t liked by the listener then they would decide to buy the single and not waste money buying a whole album of an artist that they wouldn’t like. But that factor is frowned upon by the music industry. Why? One may ask. Because of online music sharing services such as Napster. Napster was started by accident by a college student trying to find a faster way to load and copy songs off of the internet. He some way found out how to load songs really fast. After finding out this information he put it on the internet so that other college students like himself who wanted to sample music could find it faster and easier just like he did. The Napster website is simply a free way of obtaining the songs wanted and to make mixed cd’s for themselves and others. There are other sites (i.e. Morpheus, Aimster, Audio Galaxy) that offer their free music and sites to listen to any song of their choice. “Currently the post-Napster tool of choice is Aimster. The name Aimster was cobbled from America Online Instant Messenger and Napster. Developed by John Deep of Troy, New York, Aimster software allows AIM users to offer other AIM users a way to locate and copy files on one another’s computers. Unlike Napster, AIM users are on one another’s buddy lists. The index of files exists on each AIM user’s personal computer. When one AIM user wants to c... ... middle of paper ... ...er.” (Internet Magazine 1). It’s their fault and they should have to live with the mistakes they made. Don’t go blaming the innocent people that have found a new way to get around their system before they did and now they’re upset. They’ve had control for years, they control the prices of the cds (many of which are just plain ridiculous), how many quantities are produced, what will be soon out of print, and so many other things. It’s about time that we the people took control of a small aspect of it and since we developed it, we should be allowed to use it and not be punished for it. And the online music sharing companies should go unpunished as well. Did they really do anything wrong? They’re honestly giving the people what they want, none of those artists are truly losing a great heap of money, they’re just money hungry and want more of it. Well, we’re not rich, we’re regular Joe’s and we buy, get, and take what we can afford and free…everyone can afford. Works Cited Arnold, Steve. “Peer-to-Peer Computing and Contents Control.” Oct. 2001. pg.1 “Bad News for Online Music.” Internet Magazine. 24 Sep. 2001: pg. 1 Park, Lark. “Keeping the Napster Faith.” 16 Oct. 2000: pg.1
Napster is a virtual community, which consists of music news and chat-rooms, the main feature it offers is an easy way to download MP3's (music files). This controversial service has brought the lawsuit to Napster. Napster allows its subscribers to download the music files without charge. It is not however, from Napster that the subscribers get these files. It is from each other. The users share their hard drives so that other users can download any of their music files that they want.
Singers and songwriters need to make a living somehow. They know that downloading music is a way to get their voice heard, but they also know that it is significantly hurting the business. "When your product is being regularly stolen, there comes a time when you have to take appropriate action," said RIAA president Cary Sherman (RIAA 1). There are a lot of people involved in the music scheme when it comes to who needs to get paid by the revenue. From the sale of one CD, singers get one small fraction of the cost, another fraction goes to song writers, musicians also get some of the profit along with retailers, engineers, technicians, warehouse working, and ever...
Before the 1990’s, if people want to listen to music, they just visit a music store and pick up a CD and then put it into a stereo equipment. However, the development of MP3 file format gradually changed the way people listen to music. This format lets everyone download music easily and it can be converted to CD as well. But, there is still a problem: searching MP3 files on the internet is maddening and people seldom can find the music they want. Therefore, the birth of Napster solved this problem, creating a virtual music community in which music fans could use the Web as a “swap meet” for music files. More importantly, Napster is easy to use and it’s free, which expands the range of audience in age. Bandwidth also contributed to Napster’s success. The greater the bandwidth, the faster the file can be transferred. So, Napster really changed the way people listen to music, discover music and interact with music.
Since 1999, the situation around music has been changed drastically. In that year, the novel software “Napster” was released. With this software, people became able to get any file they want easily, sometimes illegally. Some musicians and people in the entertainment industry have tried to exterminate that P2P “Peer to Peer” technology. But it looks as if their efforts are in vain. People are going to use P2P technology more and it might as well become the official way to handle music distribution. The music industry should rather take advantage of the technology than keep trying to exterminate it.
Napster has been nothing but a success in the eyes of many. USA Today author Jefferson Graham explains, "To its fans, Napster is the greatest radio station in the world, a place to pick up new music for nothing" (Graham 1D). Napster has taken the MP3 technology of compressing music files loaded on computers hard drives, and used it to its benefit. We can download MP3s in less than two minutes (Gibeaut 39). This aspect is very appealing to the fast moving generation of today.
Over time the form in which we listen to our music has drastically evolved. Going from vinyl records, to tapes, to CDs, to mp3 downloads, and most recently instant streaming. Although technology becoming more advanced has helped our society to grow, the music industry has found it difficult to grow and advance with the change while still being profitable. Starting with tapes people would share their music, making mixed tapes for their friends or family. This continued when artists started putting their albums onto CD’s. It was easy for anyone to get a great new album for free as long as they had one copy of the album. This is called pirating music, it is violating an artist's rights which are secured by a copyright (the free dictionary). Pirating
The story really begins with Napster and its free software that allowed users to swap music across the Internet for free using peer-to-peer networks. While Shawn Fanning was attending Northeastern University in Boston, he wanted an easier method of finding music than by searching IRC or Lycos. John Fanning of Hull, Massachusetts, who is Shawn's uncle, struck an agreement which gave Shawn 30% control of the company, with the rest going to his uncle. Napster began to build an office and executive team in San Mateo, California, in September of 1999. Napster was the first of the massively popular peer-to-peer file sharing systems, although it was not fully peer-to-peer since it used central servers to maintain lists of connected systems and the files they provideddirectories, effectivelywhile actual transactions were conducted directly between machines. Although there were already media which facilitated the sharing of files across the Internet, such as IRC, Hotline, and USENET, Napster specialized exclusively in music in the form of MP3 files and presented a user-friendly interface. The result was a system whose popularity generated an enormous selection of music to download. Napster became the launching pad for the explosive growth of the MP3 format and the proliferation of unlicensed copyrights.
To file share or not to file share? That is the question. Should free music off the internet be legal? Who is in the right- Napster or the music industry? There are some of the topics I hoped to discuss when I invited four journalists to my house to debate the controversial issue of online music.
Overall, I am disagreeing with music downloading as a good idea, which couldn’t 100% protect artists. Many artists can take advantages of it and become famous, but did you know they still cannot get reciprocally benefit. The problem now is that the government has to administer strict law to stop illegal downloading and websites that provide it. If people cannot follow the rules, the free music downloading should be restricted.
Production companies took a bold step forward by uploading their content online. People now are not obliged to buy a full album to listen to one song, for a minimal fee you can buy the track you want, the same goes for movies and electronic publications. The downloaded files though will be digitally protected so that only the person who downloads them can use them, and he can’t share them at home or with friends. Even with this step from production companies, a large portion of people who download music still do it for free. Moreover hackers came up with new ways to remove the digital copyrights so the same as before one downloads music and distributes them around.
Now let’s flash forward back to present day when all that doesn’t happen anymore. Instead of saving of our money and begging our parents to take us to the store to buy a newly released album, we simply get on our computer, go to a website and download the album for free. It doesn’t matter what website it is, whether it is Limewire, Frostwire, or Pirate Bay, people will be happy with their free album. There are still some kids to this day who enjoy going to the store and buying and listening to an album the old-fashioned way but we have to wonder how bad things will get as more and more people are getting equipped with the Internet and the use of downloading music. While the internet might be making life easier for all, the growing use of downloading music on the Internet is growing into a detrimental and illegal problem.
Napster is a company that developed the so-called peer-to-peer technology that lets people search and retrieve music files directly from one another's personal computers. When Napster first came out, millions of internet users worldwide were illegally downloading and distributing copyrighted music, videos, images, and software for free. After being vilified by the entertainment industry, which claims that Napster and any similar programs could make piracy of almost any digital work unstoppable, and many court battles, Napster was ordered by court to be shutdown in 2000. The technology has been praised as a revolutionary development for the Internet—unaware of the problems that would arise from such practices. However, the termination of Napster was not enough, months later, dozens of new, like programs were being developed and used. And since Napster, not much has been done to stop these latest downloading programs.
Many artists and record companies do not think that it is a good thing to have their music available for free because they feel that they will lose a lot of money. The thing that they need to realize is that technology is only going to get better and they need to use it to their advantage. Many of today's artists make money touring and by having their music free could lead to people listening that would not normally listen to their music. This could lead to new listeners who might try it out, leading to more sales in tickets and in CDs. Someone might hear a song and realize that they really like that music and then want to go out and buy the entire CD.
There are various ways that one can obtain and download music off the internet without having to worry that his/her favorite jams will be serving him/her jail time. According to about.com, the best places to buy legal music are iTunes music store, Emusic.com and Napster 2.0. Apple Computer recently created the iTunes music store that provides over a million songs from major labels that can be purchased for 99 cents each. In order to use this service, one must download the iTunes player onto either your Mac or PC. This “store” also allows the user to burn an unlimited amount of CD’s. Millions across the world own an iPod that can have these music files downloaded onto it as well. Another included perk to this “store” is called Artist Alerts that notifies the user via e-mail when a newly released CD from your favorite musician has been added and available to download. Emusic.com was one of the first sites to sell music online and offers unrestricted and un-copy-protected MP3 files. The price for the service begins with a free two week trial including 50 free downloads. If the user wants to continue the service he/she may continue to pay $9.99 a month for 40 downloads. This service allows one to sample the track before it is purchased/downloaded and one can also download entire CD’s. Napster 2.0 is unlike the old file-sharing Napster that had become recognized as the service that would give out downloads and lawsuits. This new Napster is an online music store that is owned by Roxio and can only be used if one downloads the Napster software. Napster 2.0 has established content agreements with the five major record labels and other independents. More than 500,000 tracks are offered and a 30 second clip for each song is offered before it is purchased. The cost is 99 cents per song or $...
The music industry was turned upside down with the coming of Napster. Why this was is not really understood, because many programs that were out previously that did the same thing. Scour was a one of a kind program, and before that simple FTP sites were in abundance, as they still are, to download music. Perhaps the ease of which Napster allowed users to share information is what bothered them. But a lawsuit was taken against Napster, and it had to restrict many of its features (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1000463.stm). But if they had simply come to a common middle ground, perhaps having users pay to use the service or pay for the music itself, would have been better. Just because Napster was forced to add program lines that all but shut the program down didn’t mean the other user to user programs were forced to stop being made. In fact when one is shut down it seems like 5 replace it. Because of this many programs that have a service fee or a membership of some sort is ignored.