File sharing first came into existence over IRC networks, unmanned broadband servers used IRC scripts (bots) within online chat rooms to allow users to download what they wanted from host machines. Of course, only those users comfortable with IRC and those who didnt mind the unattractive, tedious and unfriendly interfaces of most IRC clients were exposed to the early days of File Sharing. Soon, dedicated servers were established by companies to make life easier for newbies, windows users and the not-so-computer-savvy. Of course, in those days not many people had broadband connections anywhere. In the mid 90s at the dawn of the MP3 craze, sharing of music files became everyone’s favourite thing to do. Then came.... Napster.
Napster, wasnt the only but WAS the most popular music sharing network that caught on tremendously. With internet connections getting faster and more and more people getting addicted, the music industry was in for trouble. So artists began to object... WHY ? I still don’t know. Its pure greed from my perspective. They make millions and they’re worried about not making enough money. Their endorsements and live performances itself could make them enough to last generations. But anyway, the uproar began. So Napster shut down, sadly for some, those of us who continued to use older (and BETTER) file sharing clients weren’t really affected. And so began the Morpheus craze.
Morpheus by Musiccity and the Streamcast network wasnt just music sharing. Unlike Napster Morpheus is a file sharing client. This was Piracy at its best. Software, Full Motion Video, Movies, Music, Pictures.. you name it... EVERY possible form of media and application was available because of the sheer magnitude of its users. Morpheus seemed to reign supreme till all of a sudden... crash... the servers started misbehaving, and that was the end of it. The servers were down for a good ten to twelve days after which they released the Morpheus ’’Preview Edition’’, a preview of its newer version which for some reason is much slower, less reliable, crashes often and has new features which mostly don’t work.
Like Freddie used to say... ’’Another one bites the dust’’. Those of us ’’leeches’’ who rely on getting free stuff on the internet are now searching for alternative ways to survive.. we are an adaptive race after all... we’ve managed to survive a couple of these.. heheh. Perhaps the new version will set things right and help Morpheus reclaim its now forgotten glory... or maybe... this is the End.
’’Throughout human history, we have been dependent on machines to survive. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.’’
-Laurence Fishburne as ’Morpheus’ in ’The Matrix’