Napster cont.

From: Emlyn (onetel) (emlyn@one.net.au)
Date: Thu Jul 27 2000 - 03:13:31 MDT


Apparently Napster has been ordered to shut down pending trial by the courts:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/437532.asp

And, Slashdot has a piece on an article from The Wall Street Journal (I think), highlighting an, um, asymmetry between Napster's "information wants to be free" public line, and the way it jealously protects its own trademarks (fair enough) and sourcecode/access to napster network/etc (???)

An excerpt:
"More significantly, the company repeatedly has tried to stymie independent software developers working on Napster-compatible software and Web sites. While these programs could benefit the millions of music fans that Napster claims are its only constituency, they might also diminish the commercial potential of Napster itself.
"The company has refused to share technical information about its software code, has made changes to its software that have prevented other programs from working with Napster's own and has blocked computers from outside music sites from accessing Napster's database of hundreds of thousands of songs. "

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/07/26/1647242

Emlyn

"In short, never send a capatalist to do an activist's job. The results will disappoint you every time." (FreeUser, from the SlashDot URL above)



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