theworldofdreams.com

guess what evryone, napster is coming back AND its gonna be legal ! check out the website http://www.napsterbits.com/ you can prergister now and get 5 free songs, otherwise there 99cents each and $9.95 for a whole album. This is gonna be cool ...

The only thing that the old Napster and this Napster share is a name and a file format. Also, doesn't Apple already provide a service like this?

yes, but not all of us buy a new apple nor can afford it. or an Ipod. Thats the only problem with Ipods, you need a mac to use em.

I think Apple is planning on releasing the Windows version of iTunes this week. (And iPods are currently supported with Windows.)

Ipods are soooo nice to have. I imagine ten years from now everyone will be using small, portable, super Gigabyte devices like them. Ipods have blazingly fast data trasfer rates, but cant trade music with each other. But I think when their quality of technology becomes accessible to more manufacturers, devices that can trade with each other will emerge.

The music industry seriously needs to address their marketing framework with regards to this technology. CDs are just way to easy to steal from I think and will have to be completely abandoned for encrypted data.

What I would do is create a new standard of encryption and compression. Trading of music would be free and encouraged. However, with this framework, only special hardware would be able to play the music and it would keep track of usage, crediting artists and billing consumer's depending on use.

Of course if the encryption was broken like with DVDs then the system would be undermined. =P

the trouble with copy protection and encryption is that some happy uber 13 year old will crack it before the sun sets the day it's released. well maybe the day after
i think we are gonna have to get used to a world where copyright doesn't mean much. music files could just be a hype to get you to come see the live show in the future.

Tel'Imoen wrote:The only thing that the old Napster and this Napster share is a name and a file format.

Actually, I don't think it even shares a file format. I could be wrong, but I believe that the new Napster uses some special encrypted-type format. I recently gave a similar service (MusicMatch) a tryout and I'm majorly unimpressed. I'm not even close to a musicphile, and my speakers were crap when I bought them 5+ years ago, but even I could tell the difference between MP3s and the crappy, low-quality encryption that MusicMatch uses. In addition, you can only use the MusicMatch player, which completely sucks. In addition to be slow, buggy and a massive memory-hog, it requires you to be connected to the internet continuously so it can authenticate your songs as you play them.

Lets compare the current options: I can download high-quality MP3s for free, which I can use in any way I want to, or I can pay money for low-quality recordings that can only be played in a special piece of crappy software that limits my usage and will stop working when the company goes belly-up in 6-12 months (and it will, I'm quite sure.) In addition, I get the joy of having the software spy on my every move and selling it to marketers in a desperate attempt to push that 6-12 month deadline back a few more months.

*cue Jeopardy music*

I really, really, REALLY want a good system where you can honestly buy music online, but these new services just aren't going to work.

Ehran wrote:the trouble with copy protection and encryption is that some happy uber 13 year old will crack it before the sun sets the day it's released. well maybe the day after

Yep. If there's anything that online games should have taught us, its that encryption is a worthless waste of time when you have to build the keys right into the software. The only thing that encryption ever does is inconvenience the honest users who have paid you. I want a system where you can buy and download music in freely available formats (AKA MP3)

CSS might have been cracked by a 13 year old, but I don't think it was overnight. I thought the story was that a DVD software player left a key unencrypted and this allowed some reverse engineers to figure it out. I agree with Drocket that copyright schemes in the computer software world are doing more harm than good, but I can't imagine companies supporting a new standard without trying to protect their profits. DVDs would never have emerged without protection and CSS doesn't hamper honest users. A new music standard that relied on hardware like DVD players might actually work. You'd just have to keep a tighter watch on manufacturers to ensure secrets aren't leaked as fast as with DVDs. And even if it is cracked eventually enough people will still buy legitimately I think.

Did you know that MS has been negotiating with Phoenix (the BIOS developer) to make Windows a part of the BIOS. Not only could they (in theory) stop Windows from being uninstalled (without a crack ), but they could implement their DRM management at BIOS level... scary.

On a related note, iTunes for Windows was released today. I've been playing with it for a little while now, and so far I'm rather impressed. The audio quality is significantly better than MusicMatch, and the player seems to be far faster and more stable. My only real complaint is that that interface isn't as straightforward as it could be: its not BAD, but I think there's quite a few improvements that could be made.

Once again, Apple leads the way.

Time to revive this thread, now that the new Napster is out... I've given it a whirl, and you can most certainly color me unimpressed. First of all, the installer crashed on me, which crashed my system. I had to reboot, at which time the installer <b>automatically started itself up</b> and crashed again.


With much fiddling around and a few more reboots, I finally got it installed. Overall, I would have to rate it as about 3 steps above MusicMatch, which puts it at the 'suck' level. The music quality is slightly better than MusicMatch, but it most definitely does not come close to matching iTunes. In terms of performance, its again slightly better than MusicMatch - and again does not come close to iTunes.

Other than the above, I have 2 big complaints:
1) It constantly tells me that its 'timed out', and forces me to reenter my password before I'm allowed to play a song. I think Napster didn't quite finish its beta testing before release

2) There's a #*$^! dancing cat that keeps popping up, trying to convince me to subscribe to 'Napster Premium' for $9.95/month. Lets get this straight: I'm quite willing to pay for music, but I'm not going to pay for the right to pay for music. Got that, RIAA? Ain't gonna happen.

On the subject of iTunes: I've been using it quite a bit since my last post, and quite simply, its great. Its simple, its easy, its fast. The music is high-quality. No dancing cat pops up to sell you other services. Overall, its so far ahead of its competitors that its not even funny. If you're at all interested in buying music online, iTunes is the ONLY real choice at this point.

With iTunes, can you burn the music to cd and play it on any player, or are you stuck using a proprietary player?

Since I'm a dj, I've been looking for a way to legally get my music online and bring my overhead down without resorting to Kazaa.

I thought about going with a Promo-only subscription, but the yearly cost is a bit high especially after just buying a house.

-PoMal

Lyl wrote: A new music standard that relied on hardware like DVD players might actually work. You'd just have to keep a tighter watch on manufacturers to ensure secrets aren't leaked as fast as with DVDs. And even if it is cracked eventually enough people will still buy legitimately I think.

back in the early days when i had my C64 i used to be hooked up with some fellows who had all the new games weeks before they were in the stores. at one point the game companies were spending as much money on copy protection as they were on the games. to no avail might i add. one company went so far as to burn a hole with a laser in the floppy which returned an error when it was read. someone beat that in under a week. there are a lot of very bright lads out there who just love copy protection busting as a sport of olympic proportions.

Malachai wrote:With iTunes, can you burn the music to cd and play it on any player, or are you stuck using a proprietary player?

Since I'm a dj, I've been looking for a way to legally get my music online and bring my overhead down without resorting to Kazaa.

I thought about going with a Promo-only subscription, but the yearly cost is a bit high especially after just buying a house.

-PoMal

Yep, iTunes lets you burn your songs to CD. If you are an artist, however, I'd take a look at CDBaby. They seem to cater to the independent musician, and I've heard very good things about them.