Illegal downloading
So, it's us Brits turn to be sued for downloading music is it? What a load of crap. From my experience of using 'legal' sites, I have not found a way for example on the new Napster to save the tracks I have bought (or in my case got free with a newspaper offer) to my hard drive. I seem to be only able to listen to them when connected to the service. Pointless. So if I want to save one song I have to burn it to one disc and effectively 'waste' a disc? To all those worrying about using Kaaza, use Shareaza. Far faster and better selection and NO spyware! Napster also from what I can tell doesn't have individual songs, only whole albums, so if one song you want wasn't on a groups album, it won't be there. If you sort of see what I mean. Besides aren't we paying enough for broadband as it is to cover costs?
"That one!"
I still don't think there will be many incidents of end users (as opposed to people actually producing and distributing the material en-masse) being prosecuted for illegal MP3 downloads. For one thing, pretty much every domestic UK users has a dialup connection (by 'dial up connection' I mean modem users *and* ADSL users since this is still a dialup service, even though marketing speak doesn't describe it as such) which selects an IP address from a pool allocated to that ISP. Where static IP addresses are used, they are usually used on large networks where it would be unlikely that an individual user on the network would be identified (even though it is usually technically possible to do so).
Until a significant number of home connections are using static IP addresses, there will be no easy way of irrefutably connecting a download with a particular person. And until that happens, there will be no serious shift in end user prosecutions.
What we'll undoubtedly get is a couple of high profile cases (I wouldn't put it past the music industry to stage them) but in the main, the average person who uses Kazaa to download a few MP3's illegally is going to enjoy the same virtual untouchability as he does now.
An interesting shift that is happening though, is the recognition of what one is doing by downloading commercial MP3's for free. When I first started doing this way back in 1998 (yes I was a user of Winamp 1.x!) the general consensus amongst the average MP3 downloading community was that there was basically nothing wrong with this and downloading MP3's was certainly not seen as stealing. Today however, I think people are much more aware of exactly what they are doing, and I do think this will translate into a reduction in the number of MP3's being illegally downloaded.
My position remains unchanged however: when it is possible to get a service with the same functionality and ease of use as Kazaa and other filesharing services, priced at a reasonable price (such as 10p/track, and maybe 20p/track for new releases, and also with free one time only 30 second previous in order to decide whether you want a track or not) then I will use MP3's legally. Until then, it's Kazaalite all the way. In my defence however (and use I do realise this is something of a cliched argumented), filesharing services of what I know to be illegally downloaded commercial MP3's have opened up a whole new world of music to me that I otherwise would never have even considered, and have led to me buying albums which, had I not been able to sample for free, I would never have bought.
Until a significant number of home connections are using static IP addresses, there will be no easy way of irrefutably connecting a download with a particular person. And until that happens, there will be no serious shift in end user prosecutions.
What we'll undoubtedly get is a couple of high profile cases (I wouldn't put it past the music industry to stage them) but in the main, the average person who uses Kazaa to download a few MP3's illegally is going to enjoy the same virtual untouchability as he does now.
An interesting shift that is happening though, is the recognition of what one is doing by downloading commercial MP3's for free. When I first started doing this way back in 1998 (yes I was a user of Winamp 1.x!) the general consensus amongst the average MP3 downloading community was that there was basically nothing wrong with this and downloading MP3's was certainly not seen as stealing. Today however, I think people are much more aware of exactly what they are doing, and I do think this will translate into a reduction in the number of MP3's being illegally downloaded.
My position remains unchanged however: when it is possible to get a service with the same functionality and ease of use as Kazaa and other filesharing services, priced at a reasonable price (such as 10p/track, and maybe 20p/track for new releases, and also with free one time only 30 second previous in order to decide whether you want a track or not) then I will use MP3's legally. Until then, it's Kazaalite all the way. In my defence however (and use I do realise this is something of a cliched argumented), filesharing services of what I know to be illegally downloaded commercial MP3's have opened up a whole new world of music to me that I otherwise would never have even considered, and have led to me buying albums which, had I not been able to sample for free, I would never have bought.
Brad wrote: I have not found a way for example on the new Napster to save the tracks I have bought (or in my case got free with a newspaper offer) to my hard drive. I seem to be only able to listen to them when connected to the service.
You can download the tracks (for free) to listen to whilst connected to the service, or pay £0.99 to listen to whilst not connected (though there are means to remove the DRM - ho hum - and since it was an offer, you might have done something wrong - was there a promo code??)
Brad wrote: Napster also from what I can tell doesn't have individual songs, only whole albums, so if one song you want wasn't on a groups album, it won't be there. If you sort of see what I mean.
It does have individual tracks:
NB: you must be subscribed to napster AND NOT non-subscription napster-light
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Anonymous
Assuming you have a decent sound card then invest in a programme like "Supermp3recorder", which records the output and saves to a MP3 file. Maybe not the ideal solution, but a solution non the less.