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Just over thirteen years ago, a novel file sharing service called Napster sent the recording industry into a tizzy. Suddenly nobody had to pay for music any more thanks to the Internet. Napster co-founders Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker pretty much single-handedly spearheaded the file-sharing revolution that the recording and motion picture industries are only just starting to catch up to.
Downloaded, a new documentary by Alex Winter, looks back at the history of Napster with interviews with some big stars. The trailer for the film recently dropped and it looks pretty damn compelling. Downloaded premiered earlier this year at SXSW and has been scooped up by VH,1 but there’s still no word on when it will air. [Animal NY]
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Look’s good, I’ll download when it becomes available waheyyyyy
+10
This looks cool, and I’d be fairly interested to see if they tie in other pirating sites and related things like torrenting and the PBay, since… I mean… until now, I never heard of Napster and thought that piracy was an exaggerated but still real drain on music
You have never heard of Napster? either you’re roughly 14 years old or i’m REALLY old.
Your just old hahaha. Napster paid for my junk food and sweets at school
First one!
Pretty obvious this film was sponsored by the music industry since there have been many surveys showing that increased sales far outweighed any losses due to downloads. Why else would so many musicians have endorsed the free release of their music on the net?
Interesting, it was definately a revolution. Unfortunately the media industry still hasn’t quite gotten what it was about for the most part. So far only Gabe Newell seems to really understand and speak about it openly. As he says, it’s all about the service. Why would someone pay a premium for something they could get for free.
It isn’t as if the evidence isn’t there that people won’t pay if offered the choice. Almost all the DRM free open ventures in music, books and games have gone pretty well and the good ones have made enough money to keep going.
I was always an audiogalaxy man.
I used to use: WinMX, Kazaa and Napster those were the days…
i remember when you could pirate music and make a decent side line from it, the same with films, now for what you can buy from the car boot pirates, i wouldn’t even bother burning them for the price they make now.
ok i am going back a bit now, but does anyone remember the dragon series of pirated software discs that were available (in the good old dial up days)
photoshop V4 was on them then lol
YEAH I remember those!
I used to make a fairly decent sideline on PSOne games back in the day.
Now bring out the survey that says piracy is good for the film industry?
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.391253-Survey-Indicates-Music-Pirates-Are-Biggest-Music-Buyers
Or that Apple/Amazon fixed the prices of ebook downloads market?
http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/31/apple-and-publishers-offer-deal/
Or the Apple/Sony profiteers on the death of Whitney Houston by increasing the price of her records straight after her death?
http://www.digitalspy.com/music/news/a365322/whitney-houston-death-apple-accused-of-cashing-in-with-lp-price-boost.html?visibilityoverride
Or how about how Amazon et al DON’T pay any feckin Corporation tax?
You can Google that one youselves…
And they have a go at me because my daughter wants to listen to Justin fucking Beieber for free all because Mr Cowell doesn’t have a big enough house?
My heart bleeds…