-- On 24 Oct 2002 at 20:32, Morlock Elloi wrote:

Napster clones, kazaa, gnutella et al. rely on end-users to upload stuff. These end users simply have no bandwidth available for that. Cheapo DSL lines have hundred or few hundreds of kbit/sec unguaranteed upload capacity. No one is going to pay T1 to serve free stuff in breach of copyright laws.

The net result is - and anyone can try it for themselves - that average success rate is less than 40%, the speed is miserable - most of the time it takes hour or more for 5-6 minute mp3, and then you need to be lucky so that content matches the title.

I am a really big fan of "Buffy". A cute chick, lots of violence and killing, and a bit of sex, what more can one ask for in a TV show? Recently due to family crisis, I missed a couple of shows. So, using usenet, I downloaded the two one hour shows that I missed. I had no problem getting them, the download ran in the background. It did not seem to take an unreasonably long time, though I did not bother to time it. I started the download, proceeded to do other things, and when I remembered to check, the download was done. So I then watched the shows. The image and sound quality was excellent, the ads had been deleted. The stories were rattling good. Loved the bit where buffy says "I am the law", and picks up a great big naked sword and stalks off to apply the instant death penalty, while Xander flutters about ineffectually being deeply caring and emotional and having deep moral debates about the use of violence. I have never downloaded a tv show off the internet before. Everything just worked, no fuss, unlike some encryption programs I could mention.

While there always will be pathological cases that will spend tens of hours online to get few mp3s for free (that is, until local telco decides that flat rate is no more viable), for most napsters are unusable.

My experience is that the mass media are doomed. This stuff works just great for me. I have stopped downloading music until I organize the music I already have. Napster was just great, worked with no fuss. Maybe the Napster clones are not as good, but my experience with downloading TV shows suggests that piracy is working better than ever. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG w5c01d6+NpDvLdLI2X6Jg5z8F2yx1pwhncy3yMYK 4b/esfa1UycmFgStXtluIkq+6g1XHHb8MMWOMZOkk