30-Apr-2001 Uncategorized

napster

The guy who runs Napster is a genius. When you log onto his site,
this message is at the very top:


Napster is continuing to comply with the District Court’s injunction and to prevent the record companies from shutting down file sharing. In the process of doing so, we have implemented a range of filters designed to remove from the Napster service all copyrighted works for which we have received notice. We have recently enhanced those filters in an effort to screen out the wide range of variations in artist name and song title that result in noticed works continuing to appear on the Napster index.


While many of the variations in artist and title names are the natural result of individuals naming their own files, some of the variations are deliberate attempts to evade the filters and share material over the Napster service that would otherwise be blocked. Napster’s terms of use prohibit the use of evasive measures such as pig latin, napcameback, napsterdecoder and otherwise deliberately altering file names in order to evade Napster’s filters. Users found to be employing such evasive techniques will receive a warning and those who continue to share such files will be blocked from using the Napster service. This determination is based on an examination of the file names the user is making available to the Napster index.

The first obvious thing to realize is that he is TELLING YOU how to avoid the filter. Yeah, terms of service this and that, but it basically
spells out all of the techniques that are pretty much working for people who are avoiding the filters. Very clever. Make it sound like you’re
all frustrated by these strategies, and yet list them very carefully so everyone can go get a nice free copy of
napcameback. Heh. The NapCameBack site is run by Canadians. Whoever said nothing
good comes out of Canada (other than comedians, actors and beer)? Heh.