Napster also includes a built-in audio player. Nothing real fancy here; it doesn't contain all the bells and whistles of some of the others available on the Internet. It does, however, provide all the basic functions and is convenient for playing the music without loading another program. Napster also includes a built in Chat module that opens up all sorts of music-related chat rooms.
Napster has become so popular that the Recording Association of America (RIAA) has filed a lawsuit against Napster, Inc. on behalf of eighteen powerful record companies. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco on December 6, 1999, accuses Napster of "contributory and vicarious" copyright infringement. Napster staffers insist that the program was intended to be used by artists and fans. The files are not on Napster's computers, they argue, so the company has no control over which files are being distributed, or how.
Napster works so well that it has also been banned by at least one university. The problem is not with copyright, but an intranet bandwidth issue. It was noticed that the campus network was slowing considerably. The problem was traced back to Napster. Apparently students were leaving Napster on all night long, downloading hundreds of songs and hogging all the school's bandwidth.
If you are an MP3 aficionado and are looking for a way to search, download and catalog your MP3 files, get Napster. You will be glad you did. The software is still in beta, so be sure to check the web site for updates on a regular basis. Don't be frightened off by the beta stigma. Even now the software works very well and is very stable. If any Napster-er has any track you're looking for, Napster will find it and make child's play (undergrad's play?) of downloading it to your computer.
