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buddy1065 · Oct 20, 2006, 07:43 AM

A friend asked me to check out

Napster

to listen to a particular song.

I was able to listen to the whole song; not a portion of it, on my 17" Powerbook.

Later I tried to get on Napster again with my PC laptop and I was only able to listen to a clipped portion of the song for demo purposes. I don't remember paying anything to Napster to listen to the whole song on my 17" Powerbook. I can listen to any song in its entirety. So if anyone with a Powerbook aluminum model (I am using OS 10.3.x) can check this out I would appreciate it. With an old copy of Wiretap on my 17" I could freely copy any any song that plays on the Powerbook if I had a mind to. But that would be illegal now wouldn't it...

Hope MBP users can check it out too and report their findings.

Please give your OS version also. Thanks.

fisherKing · 08:59 AM

the top 10 on the home page play,
anything else asks for registration...

??

ghporter · Oct 20, 2006, 09:06 AM

I'm listening to a whole song right now on my MacBook Pro. Note that I did not say "downloading" a whole song. I'm sure this is a stream that's hard to capture...the link to listen is a javascript. When I (for investigative purposes only!) clicked on the download button, I got a login prompt.

buddy1065 · Oct 20, 2006, 09:27 AM

Like I say with Wiretap software (I have the free older version) you can record anything that you can hear thru the Powerbook speakers. If you can hear it Wiretap will record it, so it's not hard to capture if you have the right software. Just one click of a button in fact.

I am not referring to the top ten songs either. Again, please indicate which Apple laptop you have and the OS version; perhaps that means something.

rjt1000 · 11:41 AM

It seems that with (free) registration you can listen to any track in full. Sweet....

Using OS X 10.4 and G3 500 Pismo--but I dont think it matters for (free) listening.

However should you want to buy something, you get this warning:

We're sorry, Napster is not currently compatible with your operating system.
Napster is currently only compatible with Windows XP/2000.
Windows 95/98/ME/NT and the Mac OS are not supported at this time.

Oh, well. I guess it just forces us Mac users to listen for free.

buddy1065 · Oct 20, 2006, 11:48 AM

Oh, I just read this in the e-mail Napster sent upon registering my PC laptop:

Listen to Free Music

Listen to every track in our 2 million-song catalog up to 3 times for FREE. After the 3rd free play, you can either purchase the track or become a Napster subscriber to download and transfer unlimited music to your PC and MP3 player.

Not sure if you get only 3 full songs to listen to or you can listen to up to 2 million only 3 times each. Weird wording...

ghporter · Oct 20, 2006, 05:37 PM

Originally Posted by buddy1065

Like I say with Wiretap software (I have the free older version) you can record anything that you can hear thru the Powerbook speakers. If you can hear it Wiretap will record it, so it's not hard to capture if you have the right software. Just one click of a button in fact.

I am not referring to the top ten songs either. Again, please indicate which Apple laptop you have and the OS version; perhaps that means something.

I said "I'm listening...on my MacBook Pro." I'm running 10.4.8. As has been posted in this thread (by you in fact, in your original post) it would be illegal, or at least extremely unethical to capture any music offered for free to listen to for a limited time. Going beyond such listening constitutes theft/piracy as far as I can tell, so I specified that it would be difficult. And if you don't think that the RIAA has webbots crawling all over the web looking for keywords like "Napster" and "download" I think you're not being completely honest with yourself. The official stance of MacNN is that we neither condone nor will we enable or assist the unlawful copying of copyrighted materials, and that we will delete any and all posts that provide instructions for how to infringe on copyright holders' rights.

Now that I've clarified that, listen to any songs you like (apparently up to three times) on Napster's site, but don't go telling people that they can steal them on these forums. OK?

buddy1065 · 07:00 AM

I simply pointed that fact out because your statement was not true about being hard to capture. It was merely a correction, not an encouragement to steal. Explaining how a gun works will not make you a felon; when you use the gun illegally you can become one. Nevertheless because you are a moderator I respect the rules since they are apparently written. I understand your position. Feel free to delete this thread then; no harm done.

ghporter · Oct 23, 2006, 08:06 AM

Point taken, but we have to be careful around here. Besides, most people figure that "included with the computer" is "easy" and "having to download and install" is "hard," so I just wrote from that point of view.

We try to NOT have so many written rules that it takes a long time to read them all. And it's true that there is nothing in the General Forum Rules about piracy. The problem is that there are so many different ways to slip across the line between fair use and unfair use, that it's hard to put that line into words. That's why we have moderators.

No harm done here, but please remember that there are people who WANT to find wrongdoing in people's choice of words and casual discussions. We just can't afford for someone to misinterpret casual discussions here.

siflippant · Oct 23, 2006, 09:54 AM

Originally Posted by ghporter

No harm done here, but please remember that there are people who WANT to find wrongdoing in people's choice of words and casual discussions. We just can't afford for someone to misinterpret casual discussions here.

Wow, not sure if I'm in the minority here... but I felt the original poster wasn't out of line... but hey, it's *that* word interpretation right?

Police rock

rjt1000 · Oct 23, 2006, 07:21 PM

Originally Posted by ghporter

Point taken, but we have to be careful around here. Besides, most people figure that "included with the computer" is "easy" and "having to download and install" is "hard," so I just wrote from that point of view.

We try to NOT have so many written rules that it takes a long time to read them all. And it's true that there is nothing in the General Forum Rules about piracy. The problem is that there are so many different ways to slip across the line between fair use and unfair use, that it's hard to put that line into words. That's why we have moderators.

No harm done here, but please remember that there are people who WANT to find wrongdoing in people's choice of words and casual discussions. We just can't afford for someone to misinterpret casual discussions here.

When Napster decided to allow 3 free plays of each entire music track, I'm sure they realized that recording would be feasible. Perhaps they have limited the bit rate in these free plays to protect against piracy, or maybe they just think that the hype generated by allowing some amount of free listening was worth the risk.

From the point of view of MacNN and its reasonable desire to avoid lawsuits, why not just add a clear statement in the forum rules that MacNN does not condone piracy, and that anyone who posts is responsible for their own words.

I think that is a better solution than policing the forums. Censorship limits the free flow of ideas, which, after all, is the reason for forums in the first place.

Just my opinion...

dndog · Oct 29, 2006, 01:39 AM

DCMA protects MacNN from the content that its users post.

They have nothing to worry about if someone mentions Wiretap Pro...