NWA-PCUG 09/2000 NewsLetter Article 18861 N. Hwy 112, Springdale, AR 72762-9303 This article is brought to you by the Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an International organization to which this user group belongs Steve Bass is a Contributing Editor with PC World Magazine, frequently writes for Forbes ASAP, Working Woman, and Family Circle, and is the president of the Pasadena IBM Users Group. He can be reached at stevebass@earthlink.net. Title: The Napster Conundrum Subhead: It's Free, It's Easy, It's Wrong Byline: By Steve Bass, PIBMUG I'm writing while listening to Dave Brubeck. Not unusual but this is one of Brubeck's long out of production cuts, a song I've been searching for on CD for a couple of years. You guessed it: I found it on Napster. It was free. Another? "High Wire," a just released cut from a Rob Brown and Sunny Wilkinson CD that wasn't available at cdrom.com or Barnes and Noble, my usual haunts. Right. It was already on Napster. Napster works by connecting you to other people wanting to download MP3 music. Once connected, you search on, say, "Brubeck" and Napster's servers find everyone logged on with music that has "Brubeck" in the listing. You can limit the search to a reasonable number of hits-100 is the default-or ask for 900 (and sometime you get your wish, filling the screen with songs). Once the search is complete, a click on the title starts a download; click on the sender's name and he or she is added to your Hot List, providing a way of finding them in subsequent sessions. So yes, I'm using Napster, feeling conflict and guilt, and collecting songs. I logged on last month and it wasn't for research or a future article. I just had to see it for myself. Free music, all you can download, all perfectly anonymous. And entirely illegal. Gimmie Some More The problem is just that: the music is free, as much of it as I want, and stunningly easy to get. With a high-speed connection, I can pop a 5MB song onto my PC in less than 30 seconds. Hell, it takes me that long to turn on the amp and CD-ROM player on my home audio system. In about seven minutes I can download and start listening to the equivalent of an entire long playing record, about 55MBs. And it's ever so tempting to dip in and grab another few songs. Scour Your i-drive for Gnutella Want more? While less valuable than Napster, there's Scour.com, an Internet app that supplies music, videos, and images. Scour works with i- drive.com, a site that supplies users unlimited-and free--online storage space. The story is that things get even more outrageous with Gnutella, a free program that provides anything you want. Search on Word and you'll get the program. Music? Easy. Porno? No sweat. But that's nonsense so let's dispense with Gnutella right away. First, Gnutella is more difficult to use than Napster or Scour. Once you master Gnutella and start searching for items, you'll find more junk and x-rated sites than you can possibly imagine. For example, a search on Wordstar (stop laughing) brought up wordstar.html, a file with an x-rated URL embedded inside. Same thing happened with a search for most popular programs. In a way it's a lot like unmoderated newsgroups with unfiltered files and messages. Worse, Gnutella is probably the easiest way to pick up a virus or have your system examined by an experienced hacker. You can safely get a taste of what Gnutella's capable of by searching at CapnBry's site. http://capnbry.dyndns.org/gnutella/gs.php If you want Gnutella, get it at http://gnutella.wego.com The Napster Connection On the other hand, Napster's files are 100 percent MP3s with no worries about viruses. The program's commercial enough with a relatively easy interface so you'll get the knack in a few minutes. If you use a personal firewall-I'm using ZoneLabs free Zone Alert (zonelabs.com) and feeling comfortable with it-you'll be safe against intruders. Of course, there are a few downsides to Napster. Not all the music is complete, and not all of it is good quality. Some Napster users are conscientious and make it clear in the song's title that the song was cut short. Often a cut doesn't get ripped-transferred from the CD to the hard drive-properly and the music is distorted. When you log on to Napster, you fill in your connection speed. Unfortunately, not everyone tells the truth. So you might find yourself downloading from someone using a 56k modem, making your high-speed access valueless. Or if you've decided to share one of your folders filled with music, slow connectors may start grabbing songs and you might feel guilty disconnecting them before they get anything downloaded. Knock Knock, it's the Net Cops In mid-June, the Recording Industry Association of America, a trade association, and a handful of record labels sued Napster, alleging it's contributing to massive copyright infringement because of its members trading songs through the service. Nobody's going to catch you, so don't worry. The biggest bugaboo you'll face is ethical. My concern is for the songwriter and performer, the two groups who are generally stuck holding the unsavory end of the stick. So not only do they get screwed by the record producers, now the customer gets a chance to chisel them out of their royalties. The Process of Denial Some people I've talked with justify using Napster thinking it will force the record industry to pay attention and change their greedy ways. Maybe it will. I know I'd gladly pay a buck or two for each cut I want, provided I'm not stuck with the entire CD. What I want is the ability, as with Napster, to check out and listen to the entire song, not a 15 second sample. For instance, I heard about four minutes of "The Time of the Barracudas," a Gil Evans and Miles Davis cut on the radio. I liked what I heard. After I downloaded the entire song on Napster, I realized it wasn't something I wanted to listen to again. I deleted it, just as I would with shareware I couldn't use. Had I purchased the $16 CD, I would've been stuck with it. And what's the business plan for the 19 year old behind Napster? The program's free and there's no advertising on Napster-no banner ads, no cookies, and no intrusions on our privacy. My guess? The kid's going to sell it to one of the big record companies. So the question we're faced with is whether Napster is a rogue, a way to let everyone pirate music from the Internet. Or is Napster a change agent, pushing the industry towards reform. Me? I've gotta go. There are a couple of Herbie Hancock cuts I'm trying to find. Sidebar: HERE'S HOW: NAPSTER Limiting uploads: Maintain control of who's able to take files from your shared music directory. One way is to limit the number of downloads to one song per person. Check your sharing folder: It's critical you pay attention to the folder you're sharing with other Napster users. It's easy to inadvertently check the box to share the entire drive. Security Tip: When you first begin using Napster, don't share any songs. In Napster's configuration, set the number of files to share to zero. Don't Share at All: The safest way to use Napster is don't allow anyone to get at your files. That way you're completely safe from intruders. Limit your Downloads: Don't try to download too many songs at once. You'll run out of bandwidth and may get knocked offline. Think about it: Your one connection will divide the bandwidth among all the songs you're downloading because each song is coming from a different user. It's better to grab a few songs; they'll download more quickly and if you are disconnected, you'll lose only a few songs. Dump partial songs: Get rid of incomplete partial files. Check out the file before you allow it to be copied to the next person. Better, set Napster to delete incomplete files. Be Polite: Check if others are downloading files from your drive before you log off. Use Napster's Chat feature to warn people just starting a download if you're planning on logging off. Hotlist Tip: As you search, watch for people on the list with multiple selections of your favorite author. Put them on your Hotlist and ignore users with just one selection. Protect Yourself: Use Zone Lab's free firewall, Zone Alert. It will stop outsiders from doing any harm. (www.zonelabs.com). This article is brought to you by the Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an International organization to which this user group belongs Steve Bass is a Contributing Editor with PC World Magazine, frequently writes for Forbes ASAP, Working Woman, and Family Circle, and is the president of the Pasadena IBM Users Group. He can be reached at stevebass@earthlink.net. --end--