NAPSTER IS DYING BUT USERS ARE FINDING OTHER FREE MUSIC OUTLETS

Napster is going down... fast and hard, folks. There are too many lawsuits and Sean Fanning's little program has caught the attention of too many very powerful people in the recording industry. However, this does not mean that the era of free music is over necessarily. Napster fans who are looking for their "free shit" (why they feel that they're entitled to free music is beyond me, but that's another story) are finding other computer programs to help them get it. Some are as easy, and some are not as easy to use as Napster. Alternatives to Napster — file-sharing software like Bear Share, Mactella and other Gnutella clones, as well as services like Aimster and OpenNap — are nothing new. But with Napster under court order to screen out copyrighted music, the service's millions of users finally have a reason to seek out new places to get MP3s. With the introduction of Bear Share and other new, easy-to-use clones, the decentralized Gnutella network — long considered the most viable alternative to Napster — may be finally ready for its moment in the spotlight. Napster's legal vulnerability stems in large part from the way the service works: it uses centralized servers to keep a directory of all the files available from its users at any given time, essentially helping people find the song they're looking for. But Gnutella is just a decentralized, ever-changing network of people whose software links them directly to other users' computers. "You can't just pull the plug on Gnutella," Stacey Herron, music analyst for Jupiter Research, said. "You'd have to go after each user individually." ... and there sure as shit isn't enough manpower in the federal government to do that.