Subject URL: 72 hours left for Napster (minus a fair chunk)

Napster has 72 hours to block all copyrighted material from their user's searches. A few services like AIMster have created auto 'mungers' to avoid search blocks, like Pig Latin etc. ROT13 has been thrown around a bit, as has simply reversing the names or removing letters hear and there and letting the human errar cureektion kick in. But this all ruins the original funkiness of Napster... EASY access and searching of songs people want.

But should we really worry? Null Device informed me of a likely Napster clone running from Sealand, the 'island without law'. I've also read in various places today (that I cannot find now) references to the fact that Napster has at least some of the burnden take away... the RIAA must provide Napster with names to filter. Napster does not have to try to figure out every encryption variation people could thing of.

I remember reading today (and again cannot find it now) someone talking about Napster, explaining why it's such a big deal now. MP3/Warez trading has always been going on, in binary news groups, in IRC, on FTP servers, but it was always restricted to those geeky and patient enough to do it. Napster (and other P2P file sharing tech) has made it very very easy for even non-tech people to share files, including copyrighted material. It was really the joining of many technologies at just the right time with just the right mouth to mouth advertising. (I remember now, this was a Slashdot comment, still can't find it). Where before if you'd shut down a sharing FTP portage you'd have a few pissed off geeks, now the RIAA and Co. are faced with millions of pissed of mum+dad users of the net who want their music now. It's also brought up all the dirty landry of the recording industry.

Fun fun fun.