RSSNapster to 'Rent' Music for Portables
By Nate Mook | Published February 3, 2005, 11:14 AM
In its latest effort to unseat online music leader iTunes, Napster has turned its focus back to subscriptions. The digital music store is launching what it calls "Napster to Go," which allows customers to copy an unlimited number of songs to portable devices for a flat monthly fee of $14.95 USD.
Previously, Napster users could only transfer individually purchased tracks to portable players, which made the subscription offering unappealing to the rapidly growing portable music market. But Napster to Go makes use of Microsoft's "Janus" digital rights management that enables subscription content to move beyond the PC.
As first reported by BetaNews last year, Janus is a secure clock DRM technology that permits content to be licensed under a subscription pricing model and transferred to portable devices. If a subscription lapses or is discontinued, playback is disabled.
Songs downloaded using Napster to Go, which has been in preview form for several months, are essentially "rented" and will expire if the $14.95 monthly fee is not paid up. The company says the technology is already supported in devices from Creative, Dell and iRiver.
"Napster To Go provides infinitely greater value and is much more exciting than the iTunes pay-per-download model," said Napster CEO Chris Gorog. "This is what consumers want and Napster is once again proud to lead the industry by being the first in the world to offer this revolutionary new way to enjoy music."
Subscription offerings thus far have been met with mixed results from users who demand full control of their music. But the model has been making progress; Napster currently touts 270,000 customers, while RealNetworks says its subscription base numbers over 700,000.
Napster hopes to strengthen its reach with the launch of Napster to Go, which is joined by version 3.0 of the Napster software. In addition, the company is preparing a $30 million marketing campaign to kick off the new service, including a Super Bowl television advertisement.
There is a great misconception that this technology is developed to get people to stop downloading unlawfully.
The people acquiring music free via P2P will see it pointless in using such flaky services. They will continue as they do unaffected and unhindered, no more said.
Sure you’ll get subscribers, but these are just the people whom buy music in the first place and are just out looking for a better deal.
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|Agreed.
However, those subscription services still have to provide value for the money spent on them and the current model, typified by the one used by Apple, does NOT.
THAT needs to change.
p2p is another issue entirely and that "war" has already been lost by the record companies. They just don't realize it yet.
I live in a country where file sharing is and remains legal. A ruling has been made, a precendent has been set. Both worlds WILL coexist but I submit that the pay model is considerably more vulnerable than the free one. That alone should drive companies to do something they most assuredly are not right now:
Keep It Honest.
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|No? So how do you expect to compete?
Ipods are the must have for mp3 players in many circles, they have now become icons in the digital music world. When a product gains that kind of status, its hard to compete against it.
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|looks to me like Neuros is the way to go, forget apple. Neuros supports .Ogg Vorbis, my drug of choice.
http://neurosaudio.com/s...500&cookie%5Ftest=1
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|But it looks like an old Atari Lynx made out of cheap plastic.
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|One word:
Taiwan.
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|Anything is better then apple...
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|Didn't Pressplay try this and fail? They are certainly not the first to try this kind of format.
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|That new Napster logo looks dumb, and Roxio was really stupid to give up their CD Burning business for this little music fad. Especially stupid for buying a long dead name like Napster who had become nothing more than a joke. There are way too many others out there and they'll never compete against Apple. I am betting Roxio either goes bankrupt in a few years or another company buys them. Either way they are history.
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|http://www.downhillbattle.org/itunes/
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|I'll agree to that: "If Apple honestly believes that the iTunes system is fair for artists, we challenge them to display the artist's cut next to each song and let their customers decide:"
wow, they really should do that, it would be intersting.
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|I thought it appropriate to post it here.
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This review will take the form of an open letter to ALL online vendors of music:
So, you want to make money with online music? Fine. Here's a tip:
Provide Value For Your Customers.
1. Whoever would pay $0.99 for lossy content is a complete idiot. At that price, buy the CD and rip it yourself. If you expect people to pay that kind of money, it better be lossless. Should you insist on selling lossy content, the price should reflect the quality, specifically no more than $0.50 a song. That's about what that level of audio quality is worth.
2. If I pay for it via either a membership or outright purchase, it's mine and what I choose to do with it is completely unlimited in scope. That means No Controls, Special Hardware Or Software Required. DRM filth has no place in music downloads and the sooner you vendors realize this the better off *you* will be. You want to meter how much I download and charge accordingly? That's fair. However, once it's on my machine, it's mine. Oh, and use formats that are widely used and recognized on the Internet as free and open and that are also bereft of DRM in any form. MP3, OGG, APE, FLAC - take your pick.
The alternative *if you don't* is what's happening now: a lot of money being poured into fruitless copy protection schemes (let's face it - you write it and it will be broken; it's never a matter of "if" but rather of "when" and Moore's Law is against you) and pointless legal posturing, none of which will recoup a pittance of the seriously overblown profits your content suppliers have become used to squeezing from the buying public.
Are we clear now? The honeymoon is over.
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I know I'm not alone in this view. The entertainment industry and its vendors need to be reminded of the Cardinal Rule, which is that they exist for one reason and one reason only:
To Service US.
The customers.
You know, the people who pay their salaries.
That's all.
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|Agreed.
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|Can i have your autograph?
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