Talk:Napster

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Contents

[edit] POV Dispute - Promotion Section

The Promotional Power section has some items that seem POV to me:

"Along with the accusations that Napster was destroying the record industry, there were those who felt just the opposite"

I feel the the phrase "destoying the record industry" is used here in a way that is meant to gently mock those who were opposed to filesharing at the time. A less dire phrase would get the idea across just fine without seeming loaded.

Also, a few months ago I added this paragraph to the Promotional Power section where Napster is credited for causing Radiiohead's Kid A to debut at at the top of the charts.

"Another possibilty is that the sales of Kid A had simply benefited from Radiohead's recent surge in popularity from the critical success of their previous album, OK Computer. In the end, shipments of Kid A as well Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief were substantially lower than Radiohead's two previous albums, as tracked by the RIAA's "Searchable Database" [9].

This is factual and it balances out the assumptions made in the prior sentences. However, it was removed and I can't see where anyone signed the edit or explained why? If no one has any objections, I feel that this should be added again.

Mister Tog 04:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] the first sentence of "Shutdown"

At some point in this passage's history, the phrase "ire of" was inexplicably removed. The sentence is grammatically and logically flawed without it. For this reason at least, the sentence needed correction. I restored the phrase. I made a couple more minor gram. changes.

I went a step further. I replaced the phrase "illegal activity" with "transfer of copyrighted material." This seemed reasonable, for a few reasons.

One, at the time the RIAA filed suit, the legality of Napster-facilitated file transfers - copyrighted or not - was, at least as yet, an open legal issue. (See A & M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.)

The phrase "illegal activity" unfairly implies not only an already-established legal finding of fact - which, again, did not exist at that point - but also a thoroughly illegitimate service, which Napster was not.

Anyway, "transfer of copyrighted material" seems more to the point of the issue than the rather broad term "illegal activity." --Bstct 08:51, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Added more to the Promotion section

Added the following:

"Another possibilty is that the sales of Kid A had simply benefited from Radiohead's recent surge in popularity from the critical success of their previous album, OK Computer. In the end, shipments of Kid A as well Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief were substantially lower than Radiohead's two previous albums, as tracked by the RIAA's "Searchable Database" [11]." Mister Tog 00:54, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] find old screenshots

"Surely if Gnutella develops into a viable (and free) alternative, but with no central server to take the lilable.

"Another potential competitor or successor to Napster is OpenNAP. Since most existing Napster clients can select what server they connect to, and since there is a free software clone of Napster server, anyone on the Internet can theoretically open up a small competitor or successor to Napster."

One link I skimmed on I think slashdot said that Napster had banned OpenNap clients from its servers somehow. I'm trying to find it again now. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/06/28/079211&mode=thread But I'm thinking now that maybe I'm missing something. . . .

there are other server networks than napsters own. napigator finds them, amongst others.

No disrespect, but what is the dispeller of myths, and does it fit with an encyclopedia (rather than, say, an MTV gossip program) Verloren


[edit] removed content

The following has no business in an encyclopedia article. Perhaps a fact or two can be extracted from it that does, though, so I'll leave it here and let someone more familiar with the present state of Napster do that.

The dispeller of myths will now channel the Napster FAQ. “There will be a small monthly fee to join Napster. We understand that you're itching to know exactly how much membership will cost -- but we haven't yet settled on a price. We can tell you that it will depend on the agreements we reach with the copyright holders who license their music for sharing by the Napster community.” The dispeller of myths says it will be between $5.00 and $10.00/month

The dispeller of myths on why to pay for Napster, “We know that there will always be a lot of alternatives. Ultimately, the choice will be yours, but we feel that file sharing communities that pay copyright holders and provide simple, useful tools to help you do what you want with your digital music collection are going to prevail.”

dispelmyths@napster.com

[edit] Napster 2.0 != Napster

Napster 2.0, as a topic, is not particularly tied to the original Napster service, and I do not think they belong in the same article together. Unless anybody objects, I would like to move the Napster 2.0 section of the article to Napster (pay service) or somesuch, and cross-reference it with Roxio and Pressplay. --Peter Farago

I disagree - it's very much tied to the original service and should stay here, imo. violet/riga (t) 12:27, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Now it's been done I won't revert it - it seems to have worked OK enough. violet/riga (t) 12:28, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I'd suggest moving this page as well and creating a dab page at "Napster", since both have equal claim to the name --Dtcdthingy 03:40, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
If you'd like to go ahead and do that, I have no complaint. You might consider renaming the Napster (pay service) article's title as well, as I picked it on a whim and now find it a little awkward. --Peter Farago 02:35, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Dtcdthingy and also with Peter, that Napster (pay service) should be renamed. Perhaps Napster 2.0? Napster (Roxio)? Napster

[edit] The last paragraph from "legal challenges"...

On June 25, 2003, the RIAA made a departure from its tactic of suing file-sharing services and announced that it would also file civil lawsuits against individual users of these services. On September 9, 2003, the RIAA filed 261 lawsuits against users of several peer-to-peer systems. They have since filed several more rounds of lawsuits against end-users.

Seems to be outside the proper scope of this article, as the original Napster had long ceased to exist by the time these lawsuits were filed - almost, if not exclusively against users of Kazaa. I would like to remove it, but felt I should comment here first.

--Peter Farago 00:06, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article needs more case and court information

This article should have more information on the judges, at least their names, and what courts the trial went to and the official name of the case. The Napster case plays an important role in MGM v. Grokster, which could be the biggest decision on copyright law in years and P2P networks

I added some trial information. An injunction was actually ordered in 2000 and appealed to the Ninth Circuit, I don't have time to add mention of that right now. Rhobite 18:55, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for adding the relevant court citations; I'm a firm advocate of well-cited articles. However, would you object to making them off-site links to text decisions, or at least footnoting them? --Peter Farago 18:21, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Summary of Edit, 28 April 2005:
  • Moved to Wikipedia:Footnote3 system. Included Rhobite's court citations, and added a number of articles from External Links which were directly referenced in-text. (Note that I do not necessarily support the inclusion of all of the content here, but I wanted to be tidy and leave editorial decisions for later.) Changed court cases and news articles to APA format, as per Wikipedia:Cite_sources.
  • The citation given in Legal Challenges for A & M Records v. Napster was actually for the injunction issued in March 2001; I have replaced it with the full citation for the court case. At some point when I have time, I will place the full texts on Wikisource.
  • How does one actually cite an injunction, though? I included both forms Rhobite offered in the bibliography; hopefully somebody can figure it out.
  • Changed "comScore Media Metrix" to "Jupiter Media Metrix", changed US usage figure to worldwide, and added citation.
  • The "largest grassroots effort the world had ever seen" comment appears to be an embellishment borrowed from a December 2001 retrospective article. MP3 Newswire's actual December 1999 article use the more modest phrase, "a huge grass roots effort".
--Peter Farago 02:14, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the changes, it looks better with footnotes. I'm not sure how to cite an injunction properly. However 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2186 is the reference specifically for the injunction order, so I figured we could use that. My experience with legal research comes from one intro course, so maybe I'm wrong. Rhobite 21:02, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

There is a reference in a court case which states that Napster was using that name in June 1999 which was accepted by the court. http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2005/d2005-0531.html This case is also relevant to Napster's history, although in this case Napster was not the defendant.

[edit] Cleanup

There are a number of things that I think should be cleaned up here, but I want to throw them up on the talk page beforehand in deference to those who have been babysitting this article longer than I have, especially Rhobite and violet/riga.

REMOVE?

Lovingboth - Is "Wrapster" really important enough to mention here?

I thought (and think) so - it changed Napster from being a purely mp3 sharing network to one that could share any files. It's also an example of a company's system being subverted by users in a way that the company never thought of or intended. So the line currently there about "Napster specialized exclusively in music in the form of MP3 files" is misleading - thanks to programs like wrapster, you could share anything. It was also not the only third party program: alternative clients were also produced. Lovingboth
If you'll personally attest to wrapster's popularity or utility, I'll take your word for it, but I don't know anyone who ever used Napster for trading non-music files. There were other contemporary services, such as Scour, which offered this capability with much less hassle. --Peter Farago 30 June 2005 00:10 (UTC)

Regarding "However the initial versions of the Napster client software defaulted to sharing every MP3 on the user's disks, regardless of their copyright status.": how would determining copyright status have been possible, especially given the lack of audio fingerprinting technology in 1999?

It's difficult to claim you're only interested in letting users share files they're allowed to share - as Napster did at one point - if you default to them sharing everything. They later acknowledged it was a mistake.Lovingboth
If you can find this acknowlegement, it would greatly strengthen the point. In any case, the sharing of downloaded files is fundamental to the success of a P2P network (modern Gnutella clients in particular go to great lengths to punish freeloaders), making such hypothetical scenarios implausible in my opinion. --Peter Farago 30 June 2005 00:10 (UTC)

violet/riga Re: the "Italian Job" cultural reference - unless a significant number of people both saw the remake and were taken in by the reference, and thus need us to disabuse them of the notion, I just don't see the use in including it here.

I added that because it is interesting to note the fact that a big Hollywood movie quite strongly references (including a flashback scene) Napster, it's formation and it's founder. To have been referenced in such a way shows how it has gained a strong place in public consciousness, more than most other independent pieces of software ever have. I think it deserves a place in this article. violet/riga (t) 06:40, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Is it possible to be a little more concise, at least? "In the 2003 remake of The Italian Job, a flashback depicts Shawn Fanning stealing the program from a computer expert played by Seth Green while the latter is napping, in a humorous folk etymology of the name," perhaps? Are you aware of any other references that would keep this one from looking so lonely? Should we mention the *ster naming phenomenon? (Friendster, Grokster, Aimster/Madster, Blubster, etc. ad nauseum) --Peter Farago 07:35, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
That all sounds good, and mention of the *ster naming is nice addition. I can't think of any other major cultural reference off the top of my head, hence my thinking that it's inclusion is important. Your concise version is fine by me. violet/riga (t) 10:01, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

CLEANUP

Damario0 - "Although the original service was effectively shut down by court order, it largely paved the way for decentralized P2P file-sharing programs..."

Napster was, in fact, shut down by court order, and it would also be extremely difficult to argue with the singular role it played in paving the way for more advanced P2P programs. Can we dispense with the qualifiers?

Rhobite - Having found the correct version of the December 1999 MP3 Newswire quote, I find the statement a little weaker than it should be. Can you think of any other way to capture the fervor?

Technically, Napster could have stayed up if they could assure the judge that they would prevent all copyrighted music from being transferred. I think it's accurate to say that the court order effectively shut them down. It did pave the way for more decentralized programs, I think we can drop the word "largely". Thanks for working on the article. I have to go, I'll probably respond more later. Rhobite 15:58, May 7, 2005 (UTC)
I was referring to the "largest grassroots effort the world had ever seen" quote, which was made well after the given 1999 date, as far as I can tell. --Peter Farago 01:21, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, you lost me. I was responding to your question about using qualifiers in the lead section. I didn't add the MP3 newswire quote and I know nothing about it. Rhobite 02:03, May 9, 2005 (UTC)
Ach, it was Mp3hist. Don't know how I made the mistake. --Peter Farago 00:34, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

REARRANGE CONTENT

"This arguably happened..." in "Legal Challenges" foreshadows comments in Final Fate, and would be best left until then. The paragraphs "In the time since the original Napster was shut down..." from "Shutdown" and "The peer-to-peer filesharing (or P2P) trend Napster started..." in "Final Fate" are redundant. I would chose the latter. The whole article should read linearly, not like a small series of capsules.

I don't feel like the Napigator comments are deeply warranted in the "Shutdown" section. Napigator and OpenNap should be mentioned in Final Fate, instead.

NEED MORE INFO

What exactly did Madonna's "getting into the mix" entail? According to the linked article, she never actually sued Napster herself, although Dr. Dre joined Metallica in doing so. Since this section is on "Legal Challenges", I would think mentioning Dr. Dre would be more important, despite Madonna's celebrity cachet.

The "Substantial Non-Infinging Use" defense (see Sony v. Universal) is important, and should be noted here.

I think a comment is warranted concerning Napster's failed attempt to block searches for copyrighted material using naive text strings and the name scrambler utilities used to bypass it during the March-June period. These were what ultimately forced Napster to shut down entirely.

Napster's difficulty obtaining distribution licenses was an obstacle common to all of the independent pre-iTunes online music stores, including eMusic and Listen.com's Rhapsody. Only the label-owned Pressplay and MusicNet fared differently. Can this be noted without veering off-topic?

Re: "Napster was the first to specialize exclusively in music in the form of MP3 files" I'm sure there were IRC, Hotline and USENET servers given over exclusively to music sharing by the time Napster arrived. It seems to me that the unique aspect of Napster that afforded it such popularity was its ease of use and its community's extremely low barrier of entry.

DATES

I'm very fuzzy on style policy regarding date links, but Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) seems to indicate both that full dates should always be linked to allow for date preferences to take effect, but that years should not be after the first time, since they are "low added value". I'm sure someone can set me straight, but in any case:

  • 1999 and 2002 are linked the second time they appear, but not the first.
  • Only the year is linked in December 1999, but February 2001 and July 2001 are given as full links. April 2000 is not linked at all. (Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) says that the December 1999 format is correct.)
  • March 5, 2001; September 24, 2001; May 17, 2002; September 3, 2002 are given with their year, but not June 3. (I find this visually tiring, but I guess it's okay if it allows date preferences to function)

I'll try to leave this be for a week or so. Hopefully I won't end up trampling any toes. --Peter Farago 04:28, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You are correct with the dates. Full dates (bullet 3) should always be linked and years (bullet 1) should be linked in line with normal linking policy. As for month/year (bullet 2) there is no set rule, but such articles on exist for recent years (from around January 2000 I believe) – I tend to leave them unlinked but don't mind either way. violet/riga (t) 06:40, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Should I also do this for dates in the References section? Is there any template that allows dates to be displayed according to viewer preference without linking them? --Peter Farago 20:45, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It would be best to, and no, there currently isn't any way around the displayed format preference other than linking the dates – would be nice if there were though, as there is no real need for them to be wiki'd. violet/riga (t) 21:05, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup Done

I have completed the cleanup as described above, although three points under "Need New Info" still need to be addressed. 65.103.110.130, I apologize for removing your comments on the filesharing community, but I already had rewritten the section you ammended when you made your contribution, and couldn't figure out how to incorporate it smoothly into the revised version. If you can, encourage you to do so. --Peter Farago 21:53, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No problem, and thanks for your consideration. I think maybe I'll add a Culture section somehwere and include more facts, sort of showing the before and after effect Napster had on filesharers themselves. Good job cleaning up, by the way. Mazer 00:58, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Final Fate / Napster 2.0

Since the Napster and Napster (pay service) articles are now separate, as I believe they should be, there is really no need to go into detail regarding the success or features of the Napster 2.0 / 3.0 / etc. services. This page is specifically about the service started by Sean Fanning, and the passing reference to the current fate of the brand name is quite sufficient. Interested parties can be (and are currently) referred to the appropriate article, both here and at the top of the page. --Peter Farago 03:17, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Napster "#1"?

I desire some evidence supporting the most recent edit. If not, I'll revert this in one week. Thanks, everyone! Svelyka 01:55, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Is it alright that I reverted it? --Snkcube 06:22, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes, thanks for reverting it! -- Svelyka 07:06, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Graph of users would be great

A great addition to the article would be a graph showing the number of users over time. Tempshill 18:09, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I added one yesterday. It could use improvement, both in appearance and in additional data (I couldn't find any more). Any suggestions? --Rpresser 06:11, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Napsterite

There has been a merge tag on Napsterite for a very long time. I've now redirected that article here, but the sole content of that article - the fact that users may have been known as Napsterites and this web site - isn't an obvious fit into this article, so I've put it for someone who knows the subject to deal with as appropriate. Kcordina Talk 09:32, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit]  ? Dr. Dre & Metallica's legal challenges ?

In the legal challenges section where it talks about Dr. Dre and Metallica handing in a list of Napster users downloading their leaked music, it says...

Napster complied with Metallica's request, but not Dr. Dre's, and both the suits continued.

What request of Dr. Dre's did Napster not comply to? It doesn't seem clear when a couple sentences previous it says all users on either artist's list were banned. --24.74.140.184 05:21, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reference needed

I added a paragraph in Promotional Power about Dispatch, but I don't know how to do references. All of that information (except the Madison Square Garden concert) are from their DVD "Under the Radar". I don't have a source off-hand about the MSG concert, but I could find one if needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.151.42.134 (talk) 09:15, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] About Radiohead

So, although it's factually correct to state that Radiohead had never had an album in the US Top 20, it seems to me to be somewhat intellectually fraudulent. OK Computer had made it to #21, and four singles ("Creep," "Fake Plastic Trees," "High and Dry," and "Karma Police") were all at least moderately, if not very, popular in their time. Although no album had been top 20, Radiohead was far from being an unknown artist. Maybe something could be done about that?

-John
63.228.114.17 (talk) 06:28, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Messy.

The page looks a big mess for somebody first looking at it, especially compared to the good article version [1]. For example the startup date isn't listed any more, the intro paragraph has various competing services listed, impact is missing etc. I am almost tempted to revert thewhole thing. Thoughts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by SimonLyall (talk • contribs) 02:42, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

As the principal redactor of the Good Article version, I have no serious objection. I would, however, encourage you to merge back any significant edits contributed since then in a logical and less "messy" fashion. --Peter Farago (talk) 00:07, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rename Napster --> Napster (peer-to-peer) and Napster (pay service) --> Napster?

The simple fact is that the Napster name CURRENTLY refers to a pay service, which is a more-accurate thing for "Napster" to be resolving to than a reference of what the name it used to be. I'm hard-pressed to think of anything else where something's past usage is the default, overriding its present usage.

The articles either need to be swapped or merged, it should be easy enough to put in the opening paragraphs of the first one that the Napster name formerly referred to a a peer-to-peer service. Compare with Atari.

Anyone have any objections to moving? Riotgear (talk) 14:32, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Object. Pets.com , Pan American World Airways might be other examples especially pets.com. Seriously the original Napster was more or less the company that popularised the who p2p thing and had most of the market and 100% of the mindshare. The current napster is just a minor service trading off the popularity of the previous brandname (which sort of hints that *they* think the previous company was more important). - SimonLyall (talk) 18:28, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Just about every defunct company I can find right now seems to include the entire history, including post-rebrand, so it seems it would make sense to simply merge the Napster (pay service) page into this one. If the Napster page is going to be about the Napster brand, which it appears there's plenty of precedence for, it needs to cover its present operations. How's that? Riotgear (talk) 13:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree with SimonLyal's points. The separation of this article into "old napster' and "new napster" sections was what allowed us to develop the focus and concision to achieve "Good Article" status in the first place. The separation is logical, and "new napster" is clearly of lesser historical importance than the original.
Furthermore, a merger presents logical continuity issues with regard to Roxio and Pressplay, "new napster"'s forebears. As it stands, the Roxio and Pressplay articles end where the Napster (pay service) article begins. If merged, the transfer of identity would take place at the new article's chronological midpoint, which would be confusing.
Remember, just because other articles use a certain style does not mean we have to adopt it here. --Peter Farago (talk) 00:06, 8 March 2008 (UTC)