CNet are reporting that Napster has reputedly offered $1 billion over 5 years to major record labels in return for the right to swap their music over the Internet.

The annual payment of $200 million would come out of projected subscription fees and other potential sources of revenue. The company gave a few new details on just what those fees would look like. A service allowing limited numbers of downloads per month would likely cost between $2.95 and $4.95 per month, while an unlimited download service would likely cost $5.95 to $9.95, Barry said.

Sound fair?

i hate napster now tis ghey

The RIAA has however refused this offer!!

I raed that on the SGL page...

do they have any brains at all? There are pleanty of neapster clones anyway, which carn't be shut down...so they should take it...but no...they are too smart...

I don't think napster's going to get that much money from subscriptions. I for one won't be paying for a service that basically uses other people's computers/internet links. Think about it... why should I pay Napster for the privelege of downloading off someone's hard drive, when that person doesn't see a penny of it? It makes very little sense. Napster survived and flourished as a freeware backyard thing... but I don't see it's model surviving in a commercial environment, even if it got the chance.

The other problem is that this payoff is just trying to get some Record labels off their back. When I download a piece of music that I've "paid for"... I still don't really own copyright for it... who knows if Napster has paid off the particular record label.

It's just a nonsensical approach to the whole thing. Napster's chance was proving that they're not at fault for people sharing pieces of music that aren't public domain... when that failed, they were destined to lose. My take is that that's completely fair. They're providing a service that isn't necessarily used to break the law. Because it is 99 times out of 100 is neither here nor there... it's the users breaking the law, not napster. Following the line that the record companies take, microsoft could sue just about any ISP for software piracy. Of course, the driving force behind this whole thing is a bunch of fatcats who wrote the system to protect their continuing fatness so... *shrug*... I'm not surprised to see napster explode... just sad.

If everyone with an innovation worried so much about what they were creating in the wrong hands... there wouldn't be anywhere near as much invention as there is these days. Of course, this argument is much bigger than this forum and I've gone way off the tracks with this spiel... so I'll end with.. "blow the goat"... and signoff.

Well I like free stuff as much as the next guy but paying for Mp3's is fair enough as long as the cost is reasonable.

I heard about napsters thought's on this matter on the news to day and in reality it's probably ok,but I also heard in the same report that the record industry wants to limit the quality of the mp3's.To what level of quailty I don't realy know but if it's less than CD quality it'll be the biggest flop in internet history.
I certainly won't be paying for substandard trax and I don't think anyone else will either.

However if the quality is as good as CD's but no better whats the point of capping them as you can reproduce all those trax at the same quality anyhow.So god knows what the record companies will concider a resonable level of quality.

Just anyother thing if you pay for a limited ammount of D/L's a month what happens if you get transfer errors do they count as a D/L and come off your monthly total.Or if you do get a realy s*** copy of a song thats not worth having why should you pay for it as you'll probably delete it anyway.

Put simply it all sounds like s*** to me.

My 2c worth

irc & ftps & patience 0wn napster for getting new stuff ... napster 0wned for old rare stuff but I got it ALL now so I don't care :o)
Its a pity though ... cause most of the really big public ftps are drying up now ... there are just too many selfish leechers that won't give anything back. I was talking with a guy who ran the herbal distro ftp on efnet the other night & he said that in 2 months he had 3terrabytes of transfer through his ftp. Needless to say ... herbal ftp is no more :o(

sif mp3s are cd quality.

And forget fatcat record executives for a second, what about the artists? Contrary to popular belief, all musicians aren't millionaires with a mansion in L.A.

Actually no. Don't take your obvious faves, Ricky Martin and the Backstreet Boys as the typical example. The Mark of Cain for instance still work full time dayjobs.

I find this whole thing highly amusing, I mean everyone gets s***** when their free lunch is taken away? Right? I'd be even more amused if they forced the CS players to pay for CS :). Bahahaha then watch its player numbers drop thru the floor.

The whole pirating of music and data is just fun to watch, those who are doing it hide under the "oh it costs too much and the big corporations make too much money" line, when in actual fact its because they dont really want to pay for it regardless of the price. /end rant

http://humor.inept.net/images/mp3.jpg