Word: napstered
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...stage for acting out the same old stories? Does its existence manufacture entirely new desires? Or does it encourage impulses that otherwise might not find an outlet? On a mundane level, the last hypothesis seems true. As is often pointed out, most people who have illegally pirated songs off Napster or borrowed a copy of Microsoft Word would never walk into a store and physically steal merchandise...
...just an inaugural skirmish in a protracted legal battle against online video piracy. Movie moguls might ask their colleagues in the music biz for a few pointers on this. For the past three years, record companies have been trying to turn back the rising tide of online music trafficking. Napster, the pioneering Web service that allowed computer users to share their libraries of MP3 tunes, lost a high-profile court case against the big record labels in 2001 and is all but out of operation. But similar services have emerged, and many think a decline in CD sales...
...Napster case is just a prequel. The movie business was somewhat insulated from Internet piracy because digitized films used to take hours, even days, to download and even then were too murky and jerky to watch. But due to advances in data compression technology, and the spread of faster broadband connections, video distribution over the Internet is becoming more practical. Now, digitized recordings of content ranging from 30-minute TV sitcoms to two-hour Academy Award winning films are flying around in cyberspace, aided by free file-sharing programs like Morpheus, Grokster, and Kazaa...
That's what it feels like to use the three paid digital-music services that are jockeying for your pocket in the wake of the old Napster's demise. They are MusicNet, owned by three of the five big record labels; Pressplay, owned by the other two; and a prelaunch trial version of the newly legal Napster. All three are so restrictive, you would think you were downloading homeland-security documents, not 'N Sync. And because the record labels are still squabbling about Internet licensing, nobody has a complete selection except those street-corner kids: morally dubious services like Morpheus...
...Napster's trial version has much the same paltry-selection problem. But assuming it can get its hands on some licenses before it launches, the struggling service shows more promise than its record-label rivals. True, most songs are in the protected .nap format, which means you can't burn them onto a CD. But there are a few independent labels that let Napster offer MP3 files that are yours for life. It is hoped more labels will follow suit...