[ Thanks to Kelly
McNeill for this link. ]
“Within the last few months, the RIAA and Napster have been
locked in a feud which has made headlines all over the world.
Because of a simple file called an MP3, which is a music file of
any track on any compact disc (CD) played on a computer with
perfect CD quality, these two companies are fighting a war over
copyright infringement. With all the legal hype that is occurring
between these two companies, it strikes curiosity in me; has the
entire MP3 business been pushed too far? After much consideration,
I have come to the conclusion that this business has done just
that.”
“The trading of MP3 files has happened for almost three to
four years before Napster was even created. Internet users
would use File Transfer Protocol (FTP) sites to share their MP3s
with other users. These sites would be shared with other users
through the use of chat rooms and programs such as Internet Relay
Chat (IRC) and ICQ. The IRC and ICQ programs could also allow a
user to download MP3s directly from another users computer onto
their own. So what is it that makes Napster not only special, but
also the center of attention to the world, and the target by the
RIAA? Simple. It is the way the Napster program was created. Unlike
FTP sites, where numerous users set up numerous sites making it
virtually impossible to find all of them, and unlike IRC and ICQ,
which both use multiple clients across the entire globe also making
it virtually impossible to track the users, Napster uses one client
and one client only for all its users. This makes it much easier to
track the program and how many users are on at one time, thus
making the program easier to be stopped.”