Digital Reactive
05-22-2004, 12:46 AM
There's an article in Britain's prestigious Times Online today called Q&A: Napster and the music industry which seems to explain what Napster II will mean to Britons now its owner, Roxio, has succeeded in snaking it into the UK.
'Easy, safe and legal' Napster relaunched says the Financial Times, UK, yesterday.
Does that mean OD2 or iTunes, for example, or LimeWire, Blubster, BearShare, Morpheus, Grokster or any of the other commercial p2p applications are hard to use, unsafe and illegal?
No, although the implication is there. It's a reference to Shawn Fanning's Napster, the app which fired the first, resounding shots in what have since become the file sharing wars.
Britons don't know Napster II is a shallow attempt to cash in on what was. They haven't been exposed to Napster II in the same way North Americans have. They still remember the old Napster, the p2p file sharing applicaition which first freed music lovers from the iron grip of the corporate music industry, and they think there's a similarity.
However, Napster II bears not the faintest resemblance to the app from which it draws its name. It's a cynical, and not very effective, hard-core marketing tool designed to get people in the UK to spend far too much on far too little.
READ THE FULL STORY HERE (http://p2pnet.net/story/1501)
'Easy, safe and legal' Napster relaunched says the Financial Times, UK, yesterday.
Does that mean OD2 or iTunes, for example, or LimeWire, Blubster, BearShare, Morpheus, Grokster or any of the other commercial p2p applications are hard to use, unsafe and illegal?
No, although the implication is there. It's a reference to Shawn Fanning's Napster, the app which fired the first, resounding shots in what have since become the file sharing wars.
Britons don't know Napster II is a shallow attempt to cash in on what was. They haven't been exposed to Napster II in the same way North Americans have. They still remember the old Napster, the p2p file sharing applicaition which first freed music lovers from the iron grip of the corporate music industry, and they think there's a similarity.
However, Napster II bears not the faintest resemblance to the app from which it draws its name. It's a cynical, and not very effective, hard-core marketing tool designed to get people in the UK to spend far too much on far too little.
READ THE FULL STORY HERE (http://p2pnet.net/story/1501)