Changes

Then came the "gamers" or those who "cracked the code": although the MP3.com system examined the IP addresses where the listening and streaming came from (to prohibit people from streaming their own songs), they couldn't examine <strong>all</strong> of the data. People quickly figured out that although their own listens didn't count for themselves, their listens for "friends" did. Around the same time, MP3.com launched a promotion called "New Music Army" which allowed people to make money by promoting other artists. The people who had "rosters" to promote would distribute all of their artists' playlists, which they would encourage recipients to stream several times a week. Many people streamed these playlists on multiple computers all day, with the sound turned off.

Then came the "gamers" or those who "cracked the code": although the MP3.com system examined the IP addresses where the listening and streaming came from (to prohibit people from streaming their own songs), they couldn't examine <strong>all</strong> of the data. People quickly figured out that although their own listens didn't count for themselves, their listens for "friends" did. Around the same time, MP3.com launched a promotion called "New Music Army" which allowed people to make money by promoting other artists. The people who had "rosters" to promote would distribute all of their artists' playlists, which they would encourage recipients to stream several times a week. Many people streamed these playlists on multiple computers all day, with the sound turned off.

<strong>The Script Kiddies made profit a question of ''point and click''</strong>

==The Script Kiddies made profit a question of ''point and click''==

As to be expected, somebody wrote an automatic script which could play all of the songs on a cabal's playlist automatically, but which played them only for the amount of time necessary to get "credit" before going to the next one. There were rumors of entire blocks of computers running playlists automatically at various server locations. MP3.com tried to catch those who were cheating and did manage to ban some of them, but there was no way that they could ban everyone. And since the site traffic soared and ad revenue went through the roof, maybe it wasn't that big of a deal?

As to be expected, somebody wrote an automatic script which could play all of the songs on a cabal's playlist automatically, but which played them only for the amount of time necessary to get "credit" before going to the next one. There were rumors of entire blocks of computers running playlists automatically at various server locations. MP3.com tried to catch those who were cheating and did manage to ban some of them, but there was no way that they could ban everyone. And since the site traffic soared and ad revenue went through the roof, maybe it wasn't that big of a deal?