时间:2018-12-07 作者:英语课 分类:国外媒体新闻


英语课

Technology: File Sharing


技术:文件分享


It has been 10 years since the birth of Napster and the global spread of file-sharing sites.
Back in 1999, Shawn Fanning, then a 19-year-old student, could never have predicted the extent to which his simple computer program would change the music industry forever.


Napster’s peer-to-peer file sharing system was perhaps the most highly publicised of its time and it was not always good publicity 1.


The Recording 2 Industry Association of America (RIAA) was less than impressed at how easy Napster made it for people to download music free of charge. They were quoted in the media at the time calling Napster "an instrument of shoplifting".


The RIAA proceeded to sue Napster saying "Napster knowingly and wilfully 3 set out to build a business based on copyright infringement 4 on an unprecedented 5 scale."


Shawn Fanning says his original intention was never to make money from the site. He claims he had only been trying to make it easier for his friends to share digital music files.


A few years later, the lawsuit 6 was dropped but a new ruling meant Napster was effectively unable to continue legally operating under their existing business model.


One thing Napster had proved was the enormous global appetite for sharing and downloading music. And where there is a healthy demand, there is usually a healthy profit to be made too.


So, unsurprisingly, the music industry followed suit and the big record labels now play a key role in hugely successful ventures such as Apple iTunes, Yahoo Music and Spotify. Napster has also relaunched itself with a more viable 7 and legal business model in which people pay a small fee for downloading songs.


Turning your home PC into a modern-day jukebox has never been so easy. But with illegal file sharing still easily accessible, it is yet to be seen how viable in the long term these new legal music sharing sites are.



1 publicity
n.众所周知,闻名;宣传,广告
  • The singer star's marriage got a lot of publicity.这位歌星的婚事引起了公众的关注。
  • He dismissed the event as just a publicity gimmick.他不理会这件事,只当它是一种宣传手法。
2 recording
n.录音,记录
  • How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间?
  • I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。
3 wilfully
adv.任性固执地;蓄意地
  • Don't wilfully cling to your reckless course. 不要一意孤行。 来自辞典例句
  • These missionaries even wilfully extended the extraterritoriality to Chinese converts and interfered in Chinese judicial authority. 这些传教士还肆意将"治外法权"延伸至中国信徒,干涉司法。 来自汉英非文学 - 白皮书
4 infringement
n.违反;侵权
  • Infringement of this regulation would automatically rule you out of the championship.违背这一规则会被自动取消参加锦标赛的资格。
  • The committee ruled that the US ban constituted an infringement of free trade.委员会裁定美国的禁令对自由贸易构成了侵犯
5 unprecedented
adj.无前例的,新奇的
  • The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
  • A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。
6 lawsuit
n.诉讼,控诉
  • They threatened him with a lawsuit.他们以诉讼威逼他。
  • He was perpetually involving himself in this long lawsuit.他使自己无休止地卷入这场长时间的诉讼。
7 viable
adj.可行的,切实可行的,能活下去的
  • The scheme is economically viable.这个计划从经济效益来看是可行的。
  • The economy of the country is not viable.这个国家经济是难以维持的。
学英语单词
'Capability' Brown
2-(butoxymethyl)tetra-hydrofuran
adjusted mortality rate
advanced gas-cooled reactor (agr)
Anglocentrism
applied polymer science
aural modulator
baker
benchmark portfolio
California rose
carrying-capacity
caudal pharyngeai complex
channel-attached device
choice device
Choybalsan Aymag
claim to a specified sum
Coleus aromaticus
compensating network
creep up on someone
Cymbidium wenshanense
declared elected
declining block-rate prices
development milestone
digital rights management
dipotassium hydrogen phosphate
direct microscopy
director finder
douane
dumbells
expense account
exstraught
floating generalized
forecast submission
fractional reserve system
Frenulum preputii
from ahead
fuck stick
fval
global environment
glycogenolytic nerve
half nephew
individual investors
jacquard attachment
JL.
Juprelle
Kegalle
kimovsk
know sth from sth
lake searlet
large scale retailing
leg-support electric rock drill
lens power
marine energy-saving technology
megachile abluta
mercator's profection
minorates
muntries
obsessive - compulsive disorder
officer of arms
out-people
outswing
overempties
overjoying
oxyacoia
pachydermatocele
plesiogeno type
post determiners
pre-engineering
prognosticative
pulse counter discriminator
pyrographed
radices sophorae flavescentis
ration bread
recirculation heat exchange
red ants
regenerating solution
return fines
Santa Fé, I.
sasakia charonda formosana
schr?dinger charge-density
sheep-dung stool
small frequencies
spectrum widening
state-enterprise
stria gravidarum
striking proof
swannery
system, data acquisition
teleplaywright
terminal flight
tile(1)
torrent
triturable
tuberostemonone
turbodiesels
value stream
vibrio commas
water vole
within one's depth
writ of assize
x-breed sheep
Yurkino