"can u give me a link to that newsgroup?" I'd love to, but it's not a web page, nor an FTP site. I don't know that you *can* do links to newsgroups.
You need to use a newsreader to access a newsgroup server. I use a program called Agent as a news and email client. Under Win98 you could also use Netscape Navigator or MS Outlook Express. There are newsreader programs available for just about any OS.
Second, you need access to a news server. You are usually supplied with that by your ISP. There are also pay news servers such as Supernews, Airnews, Newscene, etc. Many people find that their "free" server is not very good at retaining large binary files (like mp3s), and so they subscribe to a private server.
News servers are not like the WWW. There is no static content like web pages. Instead, think of it as a really, REALLY big bulletin board. Anyone can post a message. Everyone can read any message. Messages age, and disappear after a few days to weeks. Binary files (like mp3s) are encoded into text messages. Your news reader should take care of decoding them back into mp3 format automatically.
The way the .mp3 groups work, is that there is a separate discussion group (alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.d) and a requests group (.req) where you post a request for a song, or even a whole album. Someone else, somewhere in the world, reads your message, and creates an mp3 from his own CD. He then posts it to the main .mp3 group, or maybe to one of the genre sub-groups like .jazz, etc.
The problem for the record companies is that this is all so terribly easy and risk-free. They can (and do) shut down web sites that host illegal mp3 files. But they can't do anything about people posting to the newsgroups. There are complex legal reasons for this, and the RIAA would really *like* to kill the mp3 groups, but they haven't been able to.
Beyond this, lots of people exchange mp3s directly, via ICQ or IRC. With these direct exchanges, the files never reside on any server. |
