Napster Alternatives
If you're an MP3 junkie looking for a fix, we'll
tell you which of the Napster alternatives works
best.
Michael Gowan, special to PCWorld.com
Wednesday, May 02, 2001
Just when you really started to get into Napster, exchanging tracks with
unknown others across the world, Napster lost its court case. Trading
copyrighted music on the site was declared illegal and the company began
blocking downloads of your favorite hits. What's a music lover to do? Fans of
free file trading take heart: No matter whether Napster lives, dies, or mutates
into a pay service, you still have abundant alternatives.
Napster's overwhelming success spawned dozens of competitors offering
peer-to-peer music sharing--and in some cases even more. We tried the most
promising 25 (out of at least 60 available). Our testing found four Napster
alternatives that are good at what they do and a few more that show promise.
We tested each tool for ease of use, and evaluated the song selection
available. We searched for popular songs, like Jennifer Lopez's Top 40 hit
"Love Don't Cost a Thing." We sought songs that are filtered on Napster, such
as Metallica's "Enter Sandman." And we looked for the obscure, in this instance
a San Francisco-based jazz ensemble named Tin Hat Trio. All were available on
Napster before the service began filtering. A
couple of sites in development look interesting, but weren't ready for our
testing.
If you have ethical concerns about using Napster, the alternative sites
offer some solace. None has been taken to court for violating copyright
laws--though many of the sites do freely share copyrighted materials, the same
thing that got Napster in trouble. If you want to avoid any worries about
illegal sharing, you can use one of the many sites that charge users a fee to
download copyrighted music.
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