Friday, July 01, 2005

Napster is Great

If you're reading blogs, you probably know what Napster is. Napster started out as a file sharing program where people logged on and "shared" their music. Somebody else could also log on, "share" their music and download somebody else's shared music. As you have heard, the music industry did not like this much. After being shut down by the courts as illegal, Napster came out with a for-fee download setup. Instead of "sharing" your music, you sign on, browse through the music Napster has and download any song or album you want...usually 99 cents per song or $9.95 per album. You can preview 30 seconds of any song before purchasing.

I bought a few songs from Napster, but I got excited when they began their monthly subscriptions. Now I pay $9.99/month and I can listen to ALL THE MUSIC I WANT! I log on to Napster, browse for what I want and click "listen to album". I've got some really good speakers hooked up to my computer, so it's pretty much like listening to a stereo. And what's really nice is the fact that I can download the music to listen to on my computer even when I am not online. They songs are copy protected this way so I cannot burn them to CD, but except when I am in the car, all of the music I listen to is on my computer anyway.

Brooke and I got nostalgic the other day and started looking up music we listened to in high school. She looked up all these rock bands I never heard of while I looked up Jerry Reed. I'm sitting here right now listening to "East Bound and Down" (the theme song from the movie Smokey and the Bandit). I found the music from an old Jerry Reed tape I had. Who'd have thought? Napster is great.

-Rob

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