May 06, 2001 09:33 PM
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So, you want to know about Napster, eh? Well, you've come to the right place. The Princess just happens to be a Napster veteran. With over 2,000 mp3s downloaded from the file swapping program, and a total of three banishments from the service, believe you me, I've earned my stripes. I've also learned a few things, and I've found an even better place to get my mp3s. Stay tuned to find out what it is.
So, apparently Napster WAS a good thing...why did you stop using it Princess?
The truth is, I was banned. See, I've had Napster for years, and having cable internet, I usually left Napster turned on 24-7. I remember the good ol' days, when you just sign on to Napster and have a downloading ball. Now things aren't quite the same. Napster has recently been subjected to a world of scrutiny and controversy, and many artist have begun to have their music removed from the system. In essence, and not to sound greedy (although the music industry has already taken care of that), this means that I can't get the music that I know and love.
It all started one summer night last year. I went to log onto Napster, only to learn that I had been banned by rap artist Dr. Dre, along with 200,000 other users that had his music files on their computers also. Now, when I say banned, I don't just mean that particular screen name, I mean that Napster had actually given my computer some sort of command, preventing my computer from even getting on Napster again. Even if I uninstalled, deleted, and re-downloaded Napster, it still wouldn't let me on. Pretty creepy, huh? Napster dropping subliminal messages to my PC...the Princess wasn't happy.
Now, back to the Dr. Dre thing. Dr. Dre had 200,000 banned from Napster. 200,000 people who were obviously his fans...I mean, they did have his stuff downloaded. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. I decided to take some royal action after that move of his, I bought a cd-rw, burned some of his music on a cd, and now I listen to it in the car and thing with a smile on my face...''Didn't pay for this one Dre!''.
I couldn't live without Napster, needless to say, so I found a program that a little birdie told me about, allowing me to get back onto Napster. Soon after I was banned again for having Metallica mp3s, and I got back on the same way. The buzz about Napster slowed down for another eight months or so, bringing us to the 3rd banishment incident.
About two months ago, I was banned for copyright infringement. This time I seriously thought about it. Napster was falling in front of my eyes, and in demand songs were getting harder to come by. They were banning people right and left, and I felt that there was no need to even try and get back on. I thought about the way that Napster had kept me off before, the intrusiveness of their actions, and decided to move on.
WAIT A MINUTE, hold up...What makes the Princess feel that she can download copyrighted material?
Well, that's easy. When I was in 5th grade and made copies of songs from the radio, they didn't ban me from my stereo, did they? Not a very strong argument, but it's the truth.
The music industry is doing great as it is, and I don't feel that they were being affected by Napster as much as they were whinning about. Honestly, can we say FILTHY RICH? How about GREEDY? Think about it. Here are some reasons that the Princess doesn't feel that the Music Industry was suffering as they claimed:
Money from concerts, appearances, t-shirts, posters, and other propaganda.
Lack of fans that actually have a computer, much less a cd burner.
Lack of knowledge by many fans to even be able to burn a cd. Don't take that wrong if you don't know how...the only reason I know how is because I'm a computer geek with nothing better to do!
Album sales are a minimum of artist's sales anyway. They don't make much off of the albums they sell, the record companies take about 85 percent of it anyway.
I totally understand that piracy, or burning cds and selling them for a profit isn't right, and is also highly punishable by law in the USA. I only burn cds for my listening pleasure alone, and would never sell them. I honestly don't feel that this issue is a problem though, I've never been propositioned on the street with a ''Hey man, wanna buy a burned cd?''
Okay, so what's the hype about the new site you know about?
After giving up on Napster, I tried several different file sharing programs such as ScourExchange, CuteMX, and Imesh. None of these produced many results for the mp3s I searched for, I think from lack of members, and those that I tried to download had horrible download speeds. I soon stumbled apon Bearshare, and immediately fell in love.
Bearshare is a little more complicated, and takes a little getting used to, but basically works in the same way as Napster. Don't pay any attention to, nor worry about what all of the high tech settings and buttons do. They won't hurt anything, just leave them like they are. Just search and download as you always have. The results are always plentiful, and the download times are almost as fast as the tops ones on Napster.
http://www.bearshare.com
The bottom line? Napster is dead, and very intrusive. I felt as though they had too much access to my computer, and there are many file sharing programs out there that aren't under so much controversy and still have the good songs available for download. Bearshare just happens to be my pick.
~The Princess Has Spoken~
