Napster will be back: What do you think?

Minerva · Post by **Minerva** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 5:08 am

I've just saw this on BBC Online.

I've never accessed Napster nor had downloaded music from anywhere, except a few samples. So, I just wonder what the SYMers think about it. Do you agree it will manage to get better reputation than it used to?

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 5:19 am

It will likely get a better reputation in regards of the music industry, but I really doubt it will become popular once more.
There are several P2P (peer to peer) services that are around and thoese that want to "share" have ample possiblitity to do it.

I doubt much it will gain anything from the brand:
Some 97% of fans recognised the Napster name
because most of the users of said service have likely moved on and in that world the brand name means very little. Especially if the service they provided has changed.
There is a lot of double standard in that area of the internet.

I doubt very much we will see Napster making it.

KidD01 · Post by **KidD01** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 9:03 am

Napster is dead. It sounds harsh but since Napster been gone there are lots of P2P proggie surfacing around. One of Napster best contender is AudioGalaxy which was "killed" by RIAA last year IIRC.

Then again there are lots of P2P flying around and personally I don't think most P2P users wanna look back at Napster, one of the reason prolly because of the dialog they made with big name companies. Something about limitation on file sharing I think

HighLordDave · Post by **HighLordDave** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 9:36 am

P2P file sharing isn't going away (much to the chagrin of the RIAA), and the distributors are just now getting on board with the technology. As our friend Xandax rightly points out, what Napster brings is name brand recognition. People like familiar things and even after being sued and bankrupted, Napster is still a household name because it was the first major P2P network (just as Xerox made the first photocopier).

I think that as soon as folks figure out how to make premium sites easier than outright theft, Napster will have a leg up on everyone else (including iTunes) by way of its name alone.

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 10:32 am

Originally posted by HighLordDave
<snip> As our friend Xandax rightly points out, what Napster brings is name brand recognition. People like familiar things and even after being sued and bankrupted, Napster is still a household name because it was the first major P2P network (just as Xerox made the first photocopier).
<snip>

I think that in the world of P2P the brand name means little.

The fact that Napster were the first major success in P2P will not draw customers out for the (often) less then legal filesharing, from what is now the more "effective" programs.

I can name the first 3 wich might not be so well known the common man/user but on the internet thoese are major players now.
Brand will not draw P2P users back to a legal service when other services provide what they want.

It is not like regular marketing where branding is strong.
Napster might be a brand name amongst the casual user, but the real "leeches" from P2P it is ancient history.

Napster as the most popular filesharing program is dead. The only way Napster will be able to survive as I see it, is it the rates for the music is rather cheap. Otherwise .... it will be dead within a year.

<advertisment annoucer voice>
(disclaimer: Actual dead might take longer)
</voice>

HighLordDave · Post by **HighLordDave** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 11:29 am

The people who are going to use P2P file sharing for its, let's say "less than legal", applications will not use Napster. Nor will they use iTunes or Buy.com's new client. However, I believe mainstream folks will flock to a premium Napster site, because most people are looking for something that is convenient, easy to use and inexpensive, which is what Napster 2.0 will be (by all accounts so far).

There will always be an element of internet users who will want to get copywrited material for free. These folks will migrate from one application to another as the RIAA sues each one in turn, but I think many people don't mind paying for file sharing, as long as the premium they're paying doesn't seem exorbitant and is less than paying full price for a CD.

The internet is moving from free for everyone to partially free and partly premium. Look at sites like ESPN.com or CNN.com as examples. They have a lot of free content, but also some subscription-based content as well. I think file sharing will become much the same way once the RIAA figures out exactly what people will pay for and how much they're willing/able to pay.

The fact of the matter is this: some folks don't want to pay for stuff. Whether this is because of their economic situation, the principle of the matter or for the challenge, P2P networks that illegally share copywrited material will always be around and there will be a fair number of people that use them. However, many (and I'd say the majority of) mainstream folks will pay for stuff, and it's these folks that will drive premium P2P networks.

fable · Post by **fable** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 11:38 am

Originally posted by HighLordDave
There will always be an element of internet users who will want to get copywrited material for free. These folks will migrate from one application to another as the RIAA sues each one in turn, but I think many people don't mind paying for file sharing, as long as the premium they're paying doesn't seem exorbitant and is less than paying full price for a CD.

I think your last sentence is the most important. Simply put, recording companies have been making enormous profits since CDs took over from LPs in the 1980s. They've also gotten away until recently with practices that could be considered trust violations, such as requiring store chains that featured a specific artist's releases not to advertise (or in some cases, even sell) artists from another company. Some of this is changing, now, but if the prices remain high for CDs, and Napster can't negotiate a sufficiently low rate for material to pass on a good reduction to the public, the illegal MP3 sites will flourish all the more.

nael · Post by **nael** » Tue Jul 29, 2003 9:24 pm

Anyone here remember cassete tapes?
two decades ago, every person in america probably put together a mix tape by borrowing their friends' tapes or tryign desperately to grab a song off the radio.
how does taking a song from someone over the internet to make your own collection of music differ? did music companies complain twenty years ago when people were makign their own tapes?
I openly admit that I download a lot of songs and other items off the internet. But I also buy a large amount of CDs when I hear soemthing I like. In particular it is hard for me to keep in touch with new Texas artists up here in Pittsburgh, so if I find someone that has soem artists I know or new songs I don't know I'll grab everything I can and if I find something I like I'll order the CD.

I also think people are gettign pissed off that their "artists" are turning out records just to make money. an album will have just ten songs, four of which will be remixes of the other 6.

The music industry, MTV indluded is such a sham. they decie who they want to be popular, then shove down everyone's throats until people think it must be the best thing since sliced bread.

HighLordDave · Post by **HighLordDave** » Tue Jul 29, 2003 10:55 pm

Originally posted by nael
how does taking a song from someone over the internet to make your own collection of music differ?

In principle, there is no difference in borrowing a tape (that you didn't pay for) & copying songs on to another tape and sharing files over the internet. In practise, there is a world of difference because it is very hard to copy a song to hundreds of people via cassette tape, while it is very easy to violate someone's copywrite via P2P file sharing.

While I think the RIAA is missing the forest for the trees and that lawsuits against end users will hurt them in the long run, the fact of the matter is that file sharing results in the theft of intellectual property, and deprives people and corporations of the royalties they are due on a scale that has never been seen before. P2P networking is a valuable tool for computer users and does have legitimate uses, but for the most part it is a utility for people to pirate copywrited material, which is the beef the RIAA has with it.

did music companies complain twenty years ago when people were makign [sic] their own tapes?

Yes, they did. The alarmists among them claimed that dual cassette decks would destroy their sales, which of course was not the case. That doesn't mean that they didn't lose some sales to people copying tapes or copying LPs to tapes, but they came out fine in the end.

File sharing alone is not the reason why music companies are struggling, but it doesn't help and makes a convenient target and scapegoat.

Sojourner · Post by **Sojourner** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 7:20 am

Originally posted by HighLordDave
File sharing alone is not the reason why music companies are struggling, but it doesn't help and makes a convenient target and scapegoat.

Music companies are not struggling - some of the artists are.

HighLordDave · Post by **HighLordDave** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 7:44 am

I believe that most artists don't make a lot of money off of album sales; their cut is miniscule when compared to what retailers and publishers make off each CD. Except for "name" level artists with guaranteed contracts (ie-Madonna, Aerosmith, Prince, etc.), the majority of artists make their money off of touring and merchandise.

fable · Post by **fable** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 8:49 am

If the Napster crisis resulted in any good over the last several years, it's that name musicians are now getting more of a cut from their albums than before. This is because RIAA suddenly discovered when it went to court against Internet copying/provision sites that there was a third party to the conflict: the performers, who wanted Napster to deal directly with them, rather than the record companies. It was therefore in the RIAA's best interests to pull back, regroup, and get the performers on board, first, which is exactly what they did.

Of course, this doesn't mean that any struggling firsttime artist is going to receive a much larger paycheck if their album hits gold. But the regular, successful performers did negotiate a better deal in one vital respect: the portion of the residuals resulting from the licensed distribution and use of their talents. In other words, if you use a licensed song as background on your website and RIAA hears about it, they'll hit you up for money; and if you keep using it, and pay for it, the musicians will get more from it than would otherwise have been the case.

I had to look up all this stuff when writing a feature for a magazine last year.

James Mason · Post by **James Mason** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 9:29 pm

I think the new Napster is destined to fail simply because one would have to pay to use it, there are tons of free programs available for illegal use. Buy.com recently spent a very large amount of money setting up a BuyMusic campaign. They spent tons of time and effort setting the whole thing up, but days before it was to be realesed Universal backed out, the comercials were allready filmed and I saw them in production, but I haven't seen any on TV. They also had billboards made, but I haven't seen any up. I can only assume that the whole project fell through, seems to be quite a setback for Buy.com. I think it might have been somewhat succesful if Buy.com had gotten their idea off the ground, except for one crucial thing they were doing wrong, they were planning on using Windows Media files instead of Mp3's. That idea seemed to be silly to me as Mp3's are the format that is most widely used for music.

Aegis · Post by **Aegis** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 11:12 pm

The simple fact is this. Why buy the milk, when you got the cow (or something loosely like that).

People have all these P2P programs, so why are the majority of them gonna go for a pay-per-use system. I don't think it works on games, and I doubt it'll work even less with music and P2P.

It's exactly as many people have said before, P2P networks are a scapegoat for labels not making the same exborant amounts as they used to. Simple solution is to maybe print some better stuff, for starters. All I can say is that I hope all this becomes resolved soon, and to quit pestering everybody about it.