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
alkaline batteries
Allium mongolicum
amount of credit side
aorta ascendens
automatic telephony
Bardia
beaments
Blagovar
bottom ballast
boundary point
box jig
bullvalene
calcium pectolite
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color purifier
competitive product
complaintive
concentric circle diagram
conditional bond
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consulting-room
continuous watch
control network design of mining area
create a customer
creditee
cumbersome arithmetic
Dadaj, Jezioro
degenerative neuritis
doubleamplitude
Dow Jones industrials
enmortise
Fabry-Perot fringes
fibre optic current sensor
Flandrian
fore-limb
fraudulent misinformation
Furnivall
geared chuck
genus virgilias
give someone the icy mitt
giving medication
Glyptopetalum sclerocarpum
going over to
goncalo alves
half one's time
Helgale
hypoallergnic food
International Criminal Police Organization
intimater
intrifiban
isoimmune neonatal purpura
Jāodār
Kazancι
keep something under one's hat
killing an ascendant
library link
limit curve
Linares, Cerro
long-decayed material
market loss on securities
megethological
metallic melanism
muall creosoti salicylata
Nezpique, Bayou
Ngonye Falls
oil baffle
open door
operatizing
out of control state
over-scheduled
owner's account
planting body
pleiotropic
pransorious
quic
respecify
retinene
roof periodic caving
Rumex wallichii
selendesy
shirtsleeves
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sloppy joes
ssstsrsasws-s
St-André-les-Alpes
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subterrean
synergistic extraction
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take something back
topping lift eye bracket
tower purifier
TWA
underwater storage
Uribe, Can.
vengeously
Vieques
weather radar display
worth your while
yin deficiency of spleen and stomach
zinging