Capitol Records Promos Band On File-Swapping Aimster

At the same time it is embroiled in a lawsuit that seeks
to punish music-swapping company Napster, Capitol Records has made
overtures to users of another file-sharing technology known as
Aimster.

Aimster, an application that can use the "buddy lists" of instant
messaging software to help create a personal file-sharing community
for its users, now has the distinction of being the first such
peer-to-peer service to team up with a major record label in a
promotional deal.

Capitol, a label of the EMI Group, launched a promotion for the new
album from rock band Radiohead by distributing a Radiohead-themed
"skin" (an alternate user interface) for Aimster. In addition,
Radiohead video clips were served up from the Aimster Web site
during the promotion, which ended yesterday.

Aimster spokesman Johnny Deep told Newsbytes that the company has
no numbers to quantify the success of the campaign, but he noted
that the potential audience of Aimster users now totals more than
1.45 million. That's a dramatic increase from the 10,000 users who
downloaded the software during the first dew days after its release
in early August.

Deep said Aimster approached Capitol with the idea for
the skins campaign. And he said he believes his company received a
friendly response because its software, when used with instant-
messaging buddy lists, creates a "closed community" of friends for
file-swappers that doesn't support the massive distribution of
services such as Napster.

Aimster initially tapped into America Online's AIM for buddy-list
file sharing, but a new release this week added support for AOL-
owned ICQ.

In addition, Aimster provides a user-friendly interface for surfing
the peer-to-peer file-sharing network created by the controversial
Gnutella software; but Deep carefully describes that capability as
akin to a "browser" rather than an enabler of that network.

Like Gnutella, Aimster supports the exchange of any file type a
user decides to share. Napster, whose music-industry lawsuit will
reach a panel of appeals court judges next week, exchanges just
digital audio MP3 files.

The Napster lawsuit was spearheaded by the Recording Industry
Association of America and the National Music Publishers
Association, who are representing 18 record labels - including
Capitol - and a pair of music publishing companies. Napster is
appealing a service-closing preliminary injunction issued by a US
District Court in San Francisco July 26.

Deep said the Aimster crew, headquartered in Troy, N.Y., is seeking
other promotional deals like the Radiohead skins giveaway. However,
he said the company is not chasing down only music companies.

Aimster can be found online at: http://www.aimster.com/