What forum is napster now using?

[Joe]

Anyone know? It looks like they droped UBB, my guess is that its a in-house built forum.

[Nicholas Brown]

don' know - but its ****e :P

[Stallion]

Looks like a heavily hacked up Slashcode. (the system that backs Slashdot)

It can handle loads, but its not really a message board.

[MasterMind]

It is an early release of SysForum designed for them - they're license (lease) ran out.

(I asked the admin)

[DaBuzz]

Wow, the folks running napster actually complying with licensing agreements so they are not stealing software while enabling millions to disregard copyrights and steal music via their service ... now that's ironic.

[Skeptical]

I personally hope Napster goes to hell for what they've been doing, ripping off artists and music labels. How would you feel if they started "sharing" the vBulletin software on there? Ha ha...

[Fquist]

NOT. The point is that people that rip cds with napster, would not buy cds in the shops anyways, since cds are much better then mp3s..

I have bought 7 cds because of napster, because I liked artists I NEVER heard before so much I bought cds from them.

[Susan]

Originally posted by Skeptical
I personally hope Napster goes to hell for what they've been doing, ripping off artists and music labels. How would you feel if they started "sharing" the vBulletin software on there? Ha ha...

Well, that's hardly comparable since there isn't a "fair use" clause with the software industry. (Playing Devil's advocate here...) Metallica, the worlds most high profile Napster oposition, wouldn't be where they were today without the tape traders of the early 80's. I vividly remember a good friend dubbing me a copy of "Ride the Lightning" in the early 80's. She Dubbed me copies of "Master of Puppets" and several others too. Did this keep me from buying copies of the albums? No. As a matter of fact, when my husband and I got married, between the two of us, we had 2 LP's of MOP, 4 cassette copies of MOP, and within the first year of marriage had bought a CD copy of it. Would any of us have heard of Metallica had it not been for the underground tape traders? I doubt it. Napster and it's users are the tape traders of the 21st century.

You may or may not have noticed that the record industry suddenly started pushing CD's when cassette dubbing equiptment became widely available. I don't think this was any coincidence. The record industry doesn't want us to be able to easily copy music (and who could blame them--it's their bread and butter!) At the same time, has anyone questioned why cassette versions are still cheaper than CD versions? Cassettes are infinitely more expenive to produce, yet CD's are more expensive for the end user to buy. Why? Because the recording industry is greedy.

Let's anylize a typical purchase price of a recording.... You, joe user, goes to a store (or buys online) a CD copy of "ReLoad" for the standard price of $16.95. The place you bought it from gets half. That leaves about $8.50. With that $8.50, the record company keeps $6.50 for promotion, artwork, sales reps and profit (on a popular album, they keep $6 and spend $.50 or less on those other things.) The artist, if he has a good contract, gets the remaining $2. How can the recording companies justify their profits? Well, it's how it's done. They get the big bucks for picking the bands that will sell lots of albums, thus making the signing of a good band a very lucrative "investment" indeed. It also "buys" the artist and their opinions in public. Surely we all see that the real "Master of Puppets" is the recording industry.

Before you feel too sad for the artist who "only" ends up with a tiny fraction of the "profits", note that Metallica's members have palacial homes and private jets and they're far from the MegaStars that Madonna, Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, The Backstreet Boys and others are. Do they deserve these riches? Of course they do. They created their music (for the most part anyway.) They do the shows, perform for recordings etc. However, I don't think it sits well for your average American consumer who makes 20-50K a year (or less) to hear Lars Ulrich whine on TV that Napster is taking away his money when he arrives to the press conference in a Limosine which picked him up from the airport from his private jet.

I buy CDs. Lots of them. I'd say that between my husband and myself we've bought about 1000 CDs in the last 10 years. Many of those CDs, we had taped copies of the music before we bought the disc. Last week, my husband downloaded Nevermore's new album off Napster. He burned it to disc, listened to it, and ordered it from Amazon. It arrived in our mailbox yesterday. He'll probably pass the copy on to a co-worker, who, if he likes it, will buy it and pass it on. It's no different than the tape trading days.

Would we support a pay for usage version of Napster? It depends. If the wide array of music were still available, yes. If the record companies weren't snarfing up all the profits from such a venture, yes. If there was no alternative that was better for less money, yes.

However, I think the recording industry may be shooting themselves in the foot with this. The fact is, if I'm "paying" for access to Napster, I'm going to feel absolutely no obligation to the recording industry or the artists themselves. I'll pay my $10.95 a month for unlimited access and download and burn as many CDs as my little 466Mhz celeron can burn...and I won't be caring about who I give copies to. I also won't bother to buy stuff from the neighborhood record store...I'll just burn it. Sure, I like the cover art. Yup, I like the liner notes and the lyric sheets, but if I'm already paying money for the music I'm not going to pay 10x that for cover art and liner notes.

Okay.....done.

[Fquist]

*Applauds*

Whoo. Awesome writeup.

[Mafukie]

Actually people are renaming .zip files to .mp3 and distributing warez over napster. they use a (napsterware) tag in the file so its easier to find. Im not sure if thats the exact tag but I have seen something like it.

I download tons of live techo/trance sets that you can't buy in stores. The people who think Napster is doing something illegal are totally wrong. They provide software to distribute .mp3 files and they have a lisence agreement on there. Its like selling an adult a gun and then their kid shoots themself with it or kills someone with it. Is it the gun manufactures fault or the parents? I don't know I think its stupid and im never going to upgrade my napster version because its going ot get bloated with crap and limitations.

long live free music.

[Nicholas Brown]

• Long Live Napster
• Stuff the US Gov.
• And lets force Naspter to Change to vBulletin :-)

Maybe John and James could give them a free copy for all the work napster has done - Im sure John/James/Ed/Stallion/Wayne/Me2Be (the list goes on) have downloaded music from napster

[Skeptical]

Originally posted by Fquist
NOT. The point is that people that rip cds with napster, would not buy cds in the shops anyways, since cds are much better then mp3s..

I have bought 7 cds because of napster, because I liked artists I NEVER heard before so much I bought cds from them.

So if something's good for Napster, they should give up ownership rights and let you steal it? Without their permission?

Imagine you have a house. You come home one day and suddenly the outside is painted pink. Everyone in the neighborhood says it looks better and therefore you "need" to like it.

The next day you come home from work and the tree in your backyard has been chopped down. You moan and groan about how your neighbors have once again trespassed onto your property without your permission. They tell you how that tree was giving everyone bad luck, that's why they had to cut it down.

And the next time the U.S. government brings up how 95% of software used in China/Russia are pirate versions, how do you think they're going to reply? Remember, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.