Illegalster, pt II
Napster is illegal. Napster can stay online only until the judge that originally ordered the injunction can get it to be more specific. Then, essentially, Napster is dead. I have an idea as to how they can make money and make the record labels reasonably happy: Sell Napster. And not in that stupid subscription service idea, either. I should be able to go down to CompUSA, pick up a box that says ‘Napster’ on it that includes the (final version) filesharing software, MP3-ripping and playing software, and maybe even a mail-in rebate for a deal on DSL. I should be able to walk to the register, pay $100 for it, and never have to worry about it again. That’s my idea. I think it would work.
Although I do have some things to say about why a subscription service would NOT work:
You see, when I pay for a magazine subscription, both I and the magazine publisher acknowledge that I will without fail get a magazine in the mail each and every month that I have paid for. This goes for beer of the month clubs, cheese of the month clubs, HBO, internet access; everything. Now, Napster would not work this way due to one simple fact: it is a peer-to-peer, individual-driven filesharing service. If the guy I’m getting a 2-hour long live Paul Van Dyk trance set from happens to decide I’m using too much of his bandwidth, or his computer freezes, or his power goes out, my download is nearly useless. Sure, the MP3 plays up until the download cut off, but shit, I’m paying monthly for this. I don’t want unreliable connections, slow connections, high pings and all that to get in the way of my download. But if it’s free, and a download breaks, then I don’t care, because I’m not paying for it. So the only way to make sure people are happy paying for Napster would be for Napster to make sure that downloads don’t break, and in its current state, that is impossible. Leaving subscription holders pissed off if every time they try to get a Britney Spears song, the only people they can get it from are on 28.8 modems. Just my 2 cents.