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
a show of hands
Aconitum pomeense
aerial screw
Aholibamah
algorithmic translation
almonry school
amre
Andramasina
anisocercal
antennular plate
aplune
appropinque
basin -and -range
brake friction area
brass founder
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ceramic carrier
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coq au vin
D. R. S.
daintiful
diversity antenna
dummy out
establish in
exogenous cycle
first bath
foreign exchange purchase
form watch
gaggery
gebli
ground-water lowering
harmonic balance method
horizontal marketing
Horrebow level
host access method
hu yueh
Ignacio Zaragoza
indicated content
Itāwa
joseph m. jacquards
krahnke
leasing authority
lipophile liquid
long term allowable stress
loop-line
lumber tropical freshwater loadline
lymphopathia venereum
made of money
Malgache
mapping rule
Markitta
mesodonty
money-man
Moorsom tonnage
oceanic layer
out-works
oxo-bridging
oxysulfate of zinc cement
para-phrase
pemosors
pemphigus arthriticus
pentaiodoethane
phosphoric acid ester
pimpernel
Qianding
quaternary ionisation
radiophotoluminescence
Rechtenfleth
repellently
resettable clock module
rope sb. in
ropewalk
rotproofing
rotundal
sales staffs
section of an arrester
self-commutated convertor
sensitive items
service item
shanties
spectrofluorophosphorimeter
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starboard obstruction buoy
starobelsks
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surface pan
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the grape
thermo-mechanical analyzer
thumbring
tin(ii) bromide
tissue protein
togemans
Tokyo Rose
tranquilizing
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turbine augmented
wave-cut bench(platform)
wellclad
Wilson Res.
Yalifafu