Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Senior Editor ZDnet Statement regarding Impending Napster Shutdown




The Senior Editor of ZDnet Music Laments the end of File Sharing Devices if the Courts rule against Napster, Stating" If Napster were to be shut down, the established legal precedent would prevent all other similar applications from being distributed". As evidenced by the screen capture below. Click Image to Enlarge Screen Cap 2/23/2001


Click Image to Enlarge Screen Cap 3/31/2001
However, the continued court victories did not convince ZDnet to stop offering these File Sharing Devices.




Click Image to Enlarge, Screen Cap from 2/6/2001 Articles Title "Technology will never stop Piracy", "The RIAA Bullies Online Music Sites" "Share Complete Albums on Napster"

An Interviewer/Editor of ZDnet asks a Question to a guest from Yahoo Josh Robertson Associate Online Editoe of Yahoo Internet Life. The Interviewer specifically refers to Napster as a "Music Piracy Gangster Application".
Click Image to Enlarge 2/23/2001


The beginning part of the Interview showing the Context of the quote.
Click image to Enlarge 2/23/2001




Click image to enlarge 2/11/2001


ZDnet (Part of Cnet) Test of Napster Alternatives "Peer Pressure" October 2 2002
Top Ten File Sharing Software Devices Reviewed


I'm only giving short excepts from this massive review. For clarity, the actual ZDnet article quotes are in yellow, while my critical commentary is in white.
This 10 Page feature begins;

"Despite the RIAA's efforts to shut down file-swapping services, these 10 apps carry Napster's torch.

The P2P terrain changes more frequently than rockers and celebrities swap agents and Hollywood bungalows. Now that old faves Napster and Audiogalaxy are washed-up has- beens, rising stars Qtraxmax and Grokster have sprung up out of nowhere for a piece of the action. Meanwhile, well-established players such as Morpheus and iMesh change so much with each release that they seem completely new with every go-around.

To help you make sense of the current environment and ensure that you get the best file-sharing experience for your time, we've put together this P2P bonanza, which includes 10 reviews of the most popular file-sharing apps around. Make sure to glance over our features chart which shows what each app has to offer."

So, which program should you use? Right now, only one app--Xolox--delivers the features and performance that we demand, with no adware or spyware to ruin the experience. If you haven't tried Xolox yet, it's time to check it out. An honorable mention goes to LimeWire, which provides first-rate features and strong search results. Mac users, take note: LimeWire is the only application in this roundup with a version that you can use."


This feature is SO Long and involved, I'm just showing a screen cap of the intro to Show that "Limewire" was the only Mac Capable version and recommended for such. and a Few Highlights to show the use of searching copyrighted works.

ZDnet "Peer Pressure Excert using Britney Spears "Opps I Did It Again" song to test AudioGalaxy. 2002
"At first glance, Audiogalaxy returns an impressive depth and breadth of search results--but it's deceptive. Audiogalaxy strictly complies with music copyright law and therefore won't let you download every file your search turns up; this is especially true for popular music. You might get 1,000 search results for Britney Spears's "Oops, I Did It Again," but it's virtually impossible to find a match that you're allowed to download. But Audiogalaxy's main objective is to promote independent artists and no-name bands, which are prominently featured on the site's home page and often have no download limitations. That makes Audiogalaxy an excellent resource for indie music buffs. You'll have to get your mainstream kicks at LimeWire or KaZaa."

The above excerpt demonstrates that Audiogalaxy blocks copyrighted music, but recommends LimeWire and Kazaa for "Mainstream Kicks", referring to songs such as the tested Britney Spears Song.

ZDnet Except "Peer Pressure" 2002 Discussing LimeWire;
"Unfortunately, LimeWire doesn't excel at its most important job: seeking and downloading files. In our tests, Java-based LimeWire, running on the Gnutella network, returned results more slowly than its competitors, such as KaZaa Media Desktop and BearShare. We found a decent number of results when we searched for top-40 artists such as Britney Spears and The Beatles, but far fewer when we looked for oldies or classical artists, such as Stravinsky. KaZaa and iMesh both offer fuller song libraries.

The writers at ZDnet constantly use the baseline of OBVIOUSLY Copyrighted works to judge the effectiveness of various P2P File-Sharing downloads systems in this article AND quite a few more at the time period. I have access to so few of these vintage articles. In this excerpt the writers are using Britney Spears and the Beatles as search test subjects.