internet radio - broadcast without incurring royalty fees

[James A. Donald]

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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
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