Napster-ness

March 29, 2001

This napster thing is out of hand. So this morning a read an article about how the RIAA wants Napster to completely change their filtering system immediately. This is clearly a hype announcement because anyone who knows anything about computers knows that writing a filtering program is time consuming and incredibly labor intensive. You can just flip a switch and have your filtering system working the way you would like (or someone else would like). Anyway, the RIAA claims that this system is inadequate since people can still find files, just with letters switched in the names. So they are suggesting to have a filter-in system, where the labels aprove everything that comes onto the service. This would be ok for the major labels, but what about independent bands? They will have to contact napster to let them know it is ok to trade their stuff? What if I wanted to put up a speech I gave to my sink--would I then have to let them know that I am putting it up? I think the RIAA has some justification for what they've done up til now, but they have been downright malicious. I'm sure they're trying to send a message, but I think that's bullsh*t. I'm going to shut up about this now because I could ramble on for hours otherwise.

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