“Piper Jaffray reiterated an ‘outperform’ rating and $14 target price on Napster, saying the company is in a strong runner-up position to iTunes from Apple Computer in the online music services sector,” Forbes reports.

“The research firm recently surveyed teens on digital audio downloading. Napster usage was cited by 9% of teens, while 59% of students have used iTunes… Piper said 79% of those surveyed indicated an awareness that Napster is back as a ‘legal’ online music service, up from 65% in the fall of 2004. Illegal file-sharing services are still popular among teens, according to the research firm, with 80% of students who download music indicating that their source of content is a peer-to-peer network, with only 20% using legitimate online music services,” Forbes reports.

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s online music service has nearly 60% usage vs. Napster’s 9% and that’s considered “a strong runner-up position?” Sounds like a distant second to us. The report also found that Napster is followed by MusicMatch with 4% and Real with 3%. The survey also found that 70% of the respondents who were going to buy a device in the next 12 months said that they were interested in purchasing Apple iPods (which work with Apple’s iTunes Music Store, but do not work with Napster) followed by 15% who plan to buy a Sony player.