The Porn Of Napster 257
Thomas M Hughes writes "Well, Napster is breathing its last breath. Filing for chapter 7 and slowly dying. Who better than to try and bring it back to life than a porn company? The article claims that the company wishes to use the Napster name to distribute free pornography across the Internet."
Re:Why do that want Napster... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why would [Private Media] want to use a brand name that was almost entirely devoted to copyright violation?
Probably for the same reason Bertelsman got involved: brand recognition.
Alternate theory: PM doesn't want Napster, they want press.
ps. I think I sampled the statement better yesterday [slashdot.org] -- who's Prast again? :p
Re:Napster is dead (Score:2, Insightful)
Ironically, I find that Napster was the only P2P that worked reliably for me.
With the new ones, I can only connect to a few search servers, and even when I do, half of what I search for ends up just being pr0n with "kraftwerk" in its filename.
This is silly (Score:2, Insightful)
May prove Napster model (Score:5, Insightful)
OTOH, the porn industry, which may find it more difficult find (openly) sympathetic legislators, and has a much lower cost of entry, tends to compete vigorously. The porn industry does look for innovative methods to gain market share, to distinguish themselves from the other 600 business card size ads in Hustler. Sometimes this competition leads to Spam, other times it leads to extensive free content in newsgroups, or aggressively priced introductory offers.
Which means that Private Media Group may actually have the experience, motivation, and cash to make Napster work. This may provide a way to differentiate their product form their competitors. If they are successfull, it will be harder to argue that Napster's only use is for pirating, and further increase evidence that content monopolies are primarily concerned about loss of control.
Re:Free? (Score:2, Insightful)
Problem? Yeah, there's lots of porn on usenet. That's a problem?
Re:Lameness (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're missing the point.
We've already established that pr0n is one of the few ways to make a dependable buck on the net. So I'm taking that as granted.
(Bear with me...)
We've already established that Napster's BRAND is capable of pulling in publicity absolutely freaking everywhere... much to the chagrin of those of us who prefered our l337 undergr0und lynx, well... underground.
What is being purchased and marketed here is a brand. Plain and simple. It may be a way for a corp. to think that they're "legitimizing" the business by buying the brand name, but that's it.
They're marketing to the same people who have 4 different versions of Gator, Morpheus and other ad/spy/scum/ware loaded because they don't know any better.
Sheep, all of them. Controlled by the US media and news outlets... (which were both the windfall and downfall of P2P and the "real" Napster, if you guys remember your recent history...)
These are the same people who use Win because "everyone does," and don't know how to do a bloody thing besides surf the Web and play solitare.
It's also the largest market on the Web. In the US at least.
Read up on your PT Barnum quotes.
I think it's a brilliant marketing move, but a sad epitaph for a service that started out so promisingly, but made the mainstream far before its time.
--dr00gy
Re:I dunno. (Score:2, Insightful)
That was a great support
Re:Will Help Kill the Free Internet. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Free porn? ever hear of USENET? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to mention P2P is searchable and has multiple sources for a file. You take what your news server gives you on USENET. It's like the difference between watching HBO or going to the video store.