The '90s Again: WinAmp Rides Again and the RIAA sues the Internet
A pair of Ars Technica articles has us wondering if the internet of the ‘90s is back again:
Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, before the days of the iPod and the iTunes Music Store, there was an app called Winamp. People over the age of 30ish will remember Winamp as the premiere music player for people using Napster, Limewire, and Kazaa to illegally download Aerosmith MP3s to their Gateway desktop computers. (For anyone younger than that: it was like Spotify, but you needed to collect every single song you wanted to listen to manually and add it to the app yourself.)
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/winamp-of-all-things-gets-its-first-update-in-4-years/
Mac users asking what a DOT EEE EHX EEE file is…you may want to look at the unofficial WinAmp site for Mac Users.
Speaking of the unholy trio of Napster, Limewire, and Kazaa…Charter is getting sued once again by the RIAA for children illegally downloading MP3s from the net. RIAA spokesman Lars Ulrich states “We are sick of watching internet users rip off musicians around the web…we have contracted Spotify and Tidal to handle ripping off musicians and we don’t like anyone interfering in our theft.” Or something like this…
Charter Communications has agreed to settle piracy lawsuits filed by the major record labels, which accused the cable Internet provider of failing to terminate the accounts of subscribers who illegally download copyrighted songs.
Sony, Universal, Warner, and their various subsidiaries sued Charter in US District Court in Colorado in March 2019 in a suit that claimed the ISP helps subscribers pirate music by selling packages with higher Internet speeds. They filed another lawsuit against Charter in the same court in August 2021.