DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME...

I installed Napster today since they are offering a free 14-day trial at the moment. Basically, just incase you didn't know, Napster is now 100% legal. It's iTunes without the Apple (and I refuse to touch anything they create).

The free trial allows you to stream albums for free - but if you want a copy you have to buy them at roughly 0.79p per song - or around £7.99 for an album.

As I thought, 95% of the stuff I searched for isn't there (that's my taste in music for you) and what was there I already own, but it kinda struck me how easy it is to 'steal' music from Napster if you were so inclined.

It goes something like this - and obviously what I'm about to suggest is illegal and I don't endorse this technique. I'm purely documenting it for the 'interest of science'.

What you need:

1: Napster (with free trial)
2: Sound Forge (or another sound editing package). You can download a free trial from their site.
3: Easy CD-DA Extractor (or another mp3 convertor since the Sound Forge trial doesn't have the mp3 stuff enabled). Again - they offer a free trial.
4: MP3tag (or another mp3 tagging software if you what your mp3s to have all the info stored in them)

Basically - all that stuff will last you on trials for the 14 days of Napster.

Technique:

1: Install Napster and have a search for any tracks you want and cue them up.
2: Check your soundcard is setup to record 'what you hear' or 'wave'. It's a little tick box in the record settings of that soundcard volume control thingy.
3: Run Sound Forge and hit record.
4: Play your music on Napster.
5: Sound Forge should now record whatever Napster is playing. Play with the levels if it's recording too loud or too soft.
6: Once your playlist is done you should have in Sound Forge a large wav (depending on how many tracks you are recording) with all your tracks on it.
7: In Sound Forge copy each individual track to a new file and save it as a wav.
8: Convert the wavs to MP3s in Easy CD-DA.
9: Create tags in MP3tag.

Again - this is all theory. I'm just thinking it through in my head - knowing how all these programs work. If you email me cos you've tried it and it doesn't work - I'll send your email to Napster.

I really don't think there is anything Napster (or iTunes - or ANY of these music sites) can do about this. If you don't let people preview tracks, people won't use the service.

Luckily you have to be somewhat tech savvy to grab music from Napster this way and those people that can get this working will know other ways to get the music they want for free.

I really hope these music services take off - because then they might have more of the music I want to buy on them. The Napster setup seems excellent - and the library for most people will hold everything they want. But for me, I'll re-install it in a years time and see if there's anything I want to buy off it.

Nic.

posted by Nic @ 12:28 PM 0 comments