College Student's MP3 Swapping Program Takes Off Posted by Hemlock on Sunday October 17, @11:25AM EDT from the what-could-possibly-go-wrong dept. dormroom_dj writes "A freshman has written a program called Snapster that lets you search other people's hard drives for MP3s and download them directly. It has a chat room, a hot list, and about 30,000 users who are apparently all in my dorm, judging by the network. Our campus admins have started muttering about bandwidth. The record labels have not said anything yet, which is probably the calm before something." This is either the future of music or the future of a lot of lawyers. Possibly both. College Student's MP3 Swapping Program Takes Off | Login/Create an Account | Top | 36 comments | Search Discussion Threshold: -1: 36 comments 0: 32 comments 1: 25 comments 2: 20 comments 3: 13 comments 4: 8 comments 5: 2 comments NestedFlatThreadedNo Comments Oldest FirstNewest FirstHighest Scores First The fine print: the following comments belong to whoever typed them. Dashdot takes no responsibility for them, and frankly, neither do most of the people who typed them. first post! by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 17, @11:28AM EDT (#1) first post!!!1 woohoo [ Reply to This ] The labels will sue by LowEarthLarry on Sunday October 17, @11:31AM EDT (#2) (User Info) Give it six months. The Recording Industry Association of Anywhere is going to come down on this like a ton of shrink-wrapped CDs. [ Reply to This ] Re:The labels will sue by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 17, @11:35AM EDT (#3) Hey, at least it's not Portals. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:The labels will sue by BioBob on Sunday October 17, @11:42AM EDT (#4) (User Info) Citation needed. Where are you getting these numbers? [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:The labels will sue by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 17, @12:48PM EDT (#12) I tried that and it set my monitor on fire. Thanks a lot. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:The labels will sue by Anthropologeek on Sunday October 17, @01:47PM EDT (#17) (User Info) Not true at all. I've been running it for months with no problems. Maybe check your hardware? [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:The labels will sue by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 17, @02:28PM EDT (#21) Thanks for posting this. I learned something today, which is rare for a comment section. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:The labels will sue by LowEarthLarry on Sunday October 17, @12:20PM EDT (#9) (User Info) The parent's point stands, though: it depends entirely on the use case. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:The labels will sue by FidoFan on Sunday October 17, @12:32PM EDT (#10) (User Info) This is the most sensible thing I've read on Dashdot all week. Somebody mod this up. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:The labels will sue by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 17, @01:53PM EDT (#18) You must be new here. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:The labels will sue by Hemlock on Sunday October 17, @02:45PM EDT (#22) (User Info) Whoosh. That was the sound of the joke going over your head. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:The labels will sue by Gnuisance on Sunday October 17, @03:40PM EDT (#29) (User Info) No, that's not how any of this works. Please read the FAQ before posting. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:The labels will sue by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 17, @03:53PM EDT (#32) I think you're missing the point. Nobody is arguing it's perfect, just that it's better than what we had. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:The labels will sue by ShopperSheila on Sunday October 17, @02:54PM EDT (#24) (User Info) Mod parent down! Flamebait. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Bandwidth by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 17, @11:43AM EDT (#5) Our dorm's T1 is now 90% MP3s. The other 10% is people asking why the web is so slow. [ Reply to This ] Re:Bandwidth by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 17, @12:04PM EDT (#7) You're both wrong, and I'm going to explain why in a post that's way too long for anyone to read. Paragraph one: ... [ Reply to This | Parent ] Hmm by GrumpyGreybeard on Sunday October 17, @11:47AM EDT (#6) (User Info) I wonder how long until someone ports Doom to it. [ Reply to This ] Karma by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 17, @12:15PM EDT (#8) I'm posting this to burn karma. Please mod me down so I can feel something. [ Reply to This ] Slashdotted by NavNerd on Sunday October 17, @12:33PM EDT (#11) (User Info) Site's already slashdotted. Er, dashdotted. Anyone have a mirror? [ Reply to This ] Re:Slashdotted by sysadmin_steve on Sunday October 17, @01:16PM EDT (#15) (User Info) Heh. Nice one. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Read the article by modem_mike on Sunday October 17, @12:58PM EDT (#13) (User Info) Did anyone actually read the article? Half the comments here are answering questions that are answered in the second paragraph. [ Reply to This ] The real problem by Tux_Tamer on Sunday October 17, @01:01PM EDT (#14) (User Info) The real problem here is management. Engineers know how to build things right; management sets a deadline that makes it impossible, and then acts surprised when it ships broken. Every single time. [ Reply to This ] Re:The real problem by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 17, @01:32PM EDT (#16) Don't feed the trolls. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Standards by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 17, @02:07PM EDT (#19) This is why we need open standards. Without them every vendor builds a little walled garden and the users pay for the walls. [ Reply to This ] Re:Standards by RetroRaccoon on Sunday October 17, @02:09PM EDT (#20) (User Info) Actually, that's a common misconception. The spec explicitly allows it; it's the vendors who didn't implement it. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:Standards by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 17, @03:16PM EDT (#27) Real men use a magnetized needle and a steady hand. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:Standards by kludge_king on Sunday October 17, @03:04PM EDT (#25) (User Info) Funny, I had the exact opposite experience. Ymmv, I guess. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:Standards by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 17, @03:47PM EDT (#30) Did you even read the parent post? He said the opposite. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Meh by DayTraderDan on Sunday October 17, @02:49PM EDT (#23) (User Info) Meh. Wake me up when it's open source. [ Reply to This ] Re:Meh by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 17, @03:10PM EDT (#26) Exactly. And the vendors know it, which is why they're scared. [ Reply to This | Parent ] Re:Meh by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 17, @03:23PM EDT (#28) Mod parent up! [ Reply to This | Parent ] Quality by DomainDave on Sunday October 17, @03:52PM EDT (#31) (User Info) Half the files are 96kbps rips with a skip in the middle and the last 20 seconds missing. The other half are labelled as one band and turn out to be another. [ Reply to This ] Year 2000 by GrumpyGreybeard on Sunday October 17, @04:05PM EDT (#33) (User Info) Just wait until January. Then we'll see who's laughing. (Probably everyone. The answer is probably everyone.) [ Reply to This ] lol by cyber_wombat on Sunday October 17, @04:08PM EDT (#34) (User Info) lol [ Reply to This ] Distribution is the point by StargazerSue on Sunday October 17, @04:09PM EDT (#35) (User Info) The interesting thing isn't piracy, it's that a single kid replaced a distribution network that costs billions. The labels should be buying this, not suing it. [ Reply to This ] Boring by BioBob on Sunday October 17, @04:22PM EDT (#36) (User Info) Another day, another story about a chip that is 8% faster. Wake me when they invent the flying car. Or at least the flying modem. [ Reply to This ]

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