How does Napster work?

Well, this question has to different answers depending on the timing.

If you are referring to the "original Napster" then you are talking about the first "peer-to-peer" Internet based protocol, also known as P2P. This protocol revolutionized the Internet because it allows people to connect among themselves directly, sharing files on their particular hard-drives. Before that you could only download, whatever was already uploaded on an Internet Server. With P2P Napster technology, people can access your hard drive, as you can access others hard drives. A nice feature, is that if you started a download on "Pete's PC" and Pete went offline, your PC thru P2P will look for any other user owning the same file, and continue downloading from the point the connection was severed.

Needless to say, this technology generated a very strong debate about copyrights and several lawsuits were extended to Napster and other sites who adopted P2P technology. In practical terms, if Pete have a song by U2 in his hard drive, anyone connected to the same P2P engine can download the song, and then being the song in two hard drives makes it easier for others to find, and so on and on.

But that was the old P2P, in the glory days of Napster, Kazaa and E-mule.

Now, Napster is basically a Media Vendor. If you want to download something is not free anymore, you have to pay rates that usually average in $1 per song.

You can still find some pure P2P sites, but if you download a song without paying you can be charged for copyright infringement and be prosecuted by the proper authorities, having to pay lots of money in fines and depending on the magnitude of your transgression even go to jail.

Is not a dream world anymore :(

Chances are that whatever you want, you will be able to find it on Napster. Napster likes to boast that it is the pioneer and leader in the digital music revolution, and that they have the best and most extensive digital song catalog on the web.

With over two million digital song files stored in their music catalog, they might well be on to something. Napster has perhaps the most impressive song catalog of all the digital music services on the internet.

Even though these numbers are constantly in flux, and the people over at the Apple iTunes Music Store might tell you otherwise, for now it appears that Napster holds the most impressive record collection on the block.

It is evident that Napster represents a true music lover’s paradise. The site seeks to encompass almost every music genre you can think of. All the big music categories are represented including rock, pop, hip hop, R&B, classical, country, easy listening, Latin and so on.

Hope it helps you.

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Napster is a legal music download service that requires a monthly subscription.
You can read all about how napster works here:

http://www.musicdownloadreview.net/napsterreview.html

It only costs $5 per month now and you get unlimited streaming plus 5 downloads per month that you can keep forever, even if you cancel.