Napster: What is it, what is it for and what was its impact on the music industry?

Music has been one of the most important elements for many years for the community, this is how a large number of programs and applications capable of download songs and play them either on your computer, smartphone or tablet.

That’s how he was born napstera program that managed to have a great impact on the early music industry, where he himself was in charge of offering for free all those topics that were mostly paid. And at the same time offer the opportunity to play and create playlists of favorite songs.

Taking into account the importance that this software came to have at the time, here we are going to explain a little more about what is it?, what was its function? And how was its great impact on society?

What is Napster and what is this program for?

This music service was born in the summer of 1999, and was developed by Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning who decided to create what would be the first version of Napster. The main idea of ​​this program would be that users could download software to their computers that would allow them to download music and share resources with their hard drive. At first this seemed like a crazy idea and one that would not be allowed by customers.

That was how this program managed to hit the market and which became a way for people to be able to share your mp3 files whom many complained about considering it a piracy or offering illegal copies. However, this software worked like a P2P network.

In this way all these music files became more popular since they could be played on computers. In addition to napster towards making things much easier for users, which led it to become one of the the main programs of the music industry.

That is how napster is responsible for allowing the client to listen to music instantly and anywhere, for this it offers a streaming service with an extensive music library where you can find millions of views of all genres. In addition, you have the possibility to use playlists, radio stations and recommendations of the moment.

How did Napster work to allow downloading of paid music content for free?

Napster managed to become the great reference of music thanks to allowing what was downloading mp3 files in a very easy and fast way, it also provided topics that were normally payment and here they could Download to your computer at no cost. This is how this program came to make it easier for people what it was search for mp3 songs, considering this was very hard to come by at the time.

That was how it became a software that allowed share files between your users. In this way, said content were not stored in the files from a central computer, but were kept in the machines of the different useryes This is how this music application works with the system known as P2P or Peer-to-Peer.

This means that every time a song was downloaded from napster it was just downloading from someone else’s computerhe himself could be located in another country or continent without this causing problems. In this way, the application could provide completely free paid music themes.

However, this working method would eventually bring consequences to its developers, since for many they were providing music without copyright. To all this, the creators of this entire system claimed that anyone could share your files without committing any crime.

What was the impact of Napster on the music industry?

As we mentioned before, this program managed to become one of the most popular at the time, that’s how it managed to revolutionize the music industry during its start. And it is that it offered unique and very useful tools to each of its users. Where they had two options to be able to listen to a song from a specific albumthe first of hers was ask another person and the second pay it.

Back then buying a song was something that had a very high cost And not everyone could do it. Therefore, Napster allow the download of these melodies completely free, In this way, it managed to attract the attention of millions of users who quickly began to use it. Thanks to this, it began to be a success.

It had functions such as that of a chat, playlists, it allowed to download music easily, it had thematic channels according to the types of music, a forum, among many others. All this led it to become the best music downloader of its time.

So much so Napster came to offer musical melodies from different artists that had not even been released on the market yet, but which were already published in the program. This began to attract the attention of many people and companies, this being one of the main reasons for the legal problems who had this app.

But why did Napster shut down? Reasons for the collapse

All this trouble starts when napster publishes in its interface the recent metallica songwhich was named ‘I Disappear, and had not yet been released by the musical group to the market. Because of this, the melody began to sound on the different radio stations without being launched by Metallica and without their authorization.

All this did not cause any grace to the music group, much less knowing that all his discography was already available in said program. It was like that for the month of June of the year 2000, the band member Lars Ulrich accuses developers of the program commit copyright infringement in the Northern District Court of California.

It should be noted that this was not the only song that had been published without the prior authorization of the creator, namely, without copyright. Which led to a trial for contempt of law and justice. Based on all of these issues, the site alleged the following: “The filter system did not work properly, because of this we have to close the site.”

Nevertheless, Napster developers not only would they lose their case but they received a millionaire fine at that time, which it was impossible for them to cancel at that moment. When you find yourself in this situation made the decision to sell it to another business. This is how currently Napster is still available on the netwhere is now a paid streaming service.

Napster vs Ares Which was better and how are they different?

Napster and Ares they became two of the best platforms for what was mp3 music downloadboth were associated with what is known as P2P programs. But the reality of this is that this technology is not only used by BitTorrent clientscurrently it is associated with a large number of elements and programs.

That is how Skype nowadays it associated with P2P by telephony over the Internet, distribution of large files, among other tools. In the same way, the different Bitcoin platforms and virtual currencies.

the P2P was also associated with other programs such as LimeWire, Ares, Napster among many others, despite the fact that at that time connections were much slower and interrupted more often. Therefore, here we explain a little more about Napster and Ares and which of them is the best.

napster

This program was not the first nor the only P2P on the marketwas also not the best despite the fact that he himself became the revolution of musical applications. This is because if it was the first P2P network that put the big record companies in danger and which had to denounce it on several occasions until they managed to its temporary closure.

It was based on share music files between its different usersthat is, each of them he contributed his mp3 files so that others could also download them. All this achieved that its users could find almost all the songs they wanted, regardless of the artist, genre or year of release.

Similarly, he offered a chat, group channels and individual conversations. It still exists today but with a completely different platform, which there is no trace of its originsnow being a streaming and payment platform.

Ares

Ares was released in the year 2002 after the napster shutdownhe managed to become one of the most successful P2P clients on the marketespecially in Spanish-speaking countries. It still continues to provide its services and with a new version called Ares Galaxy.

Initially, he decided to use the Gnutella network, this being one of the most popular. However, with the passage of time created their own protocol where currently supports magnet links and BitTorrent clients.

If we compare it with napster, it can be said that ares has been much better. Furthermore, it is still being in force and providing its services offered since its inception. This is how it not only allows share mp3 audio filebut also videos, images, among others. Similarly, it has a very high download speed and offers a forum and instant messaging service.