“Whether you like Napster To Go, the online store’s new music subscription service, depends on whether you think of it as all-you-can-eat or all-you-can-pay,” Rob Pegoraro writes for The Washington Post. “Both descriptions are accurate. For $15 a month, Napster To Go offers unlimited song downloads — in a copy-restricted format that can be played only on Windows XP computers and some digital music players — but these songs expire if you don’t keep paying that fee each month.”
“Napster To Go’s $15 monthly bills, however, will keep coming due for as long as you care to listen to your downloads. And over time, those fees add up, too,” Pegoraro writes. “Consider this example: I have been purchasing CDs for about 20 years now, in which time I’ve accumulated about 300 of the things. At an average of $15 each, I’ve spent $4,500. Now suppose that, instead of buying those CDs, I could have opened up a Napster To Go account back in 1985. My total bill would be $3,600 and counting — and although I might have accumulated a larger, more diverse collection, I wouldn’t own any of it.”
“I have a hard time accepting that. At its best, music has the same lasting value as books or paintings or any other sort of meaningful art: It isn’t a disposable good that you use and then forget about. It’s something that you keep listening to and discovering new things in. When music is good, you want to know that it can’t be taken away from you,” Pegoraro writes. “Napster To Go doesn’t allow for that. And when you realize this point, it looks less like a service that allows you to pay to get new music and more like one that forces you to pay to keep your existing music.”
Full article here.
Have Napster got an option to buy your music at the “end”?
Yeah, “doin’ the math” was a bad decision on Gorog’s part.
Napster to Go is aptly named; it’s gonna Go down the drain…
It is every company’s dream to turn themselves into a utility. Unfortunately for Napster it neither lights my house nor lets me me calls so I’ll pass
MDNs magic word says it all: “WANT”, as in only an idiot (may be replaced with “stupid”) would want this service. Because, once youre in, youre in. If you want to keep on listening to the music you have gotten accustomed to, you are forced to keep on paying for the service. Then there is the issue of total incompatibility wi9th not only the iPod, but most of the other player out there. And they call Apple’s system proprietarty – what a laugh.
Sure, “Napster to Go”…
away.
And once Janus has been cracked, which it will, the music industry will back away from digital (download) services again. This can only hurt the reputable vendors out there.
Parhaps, as system that could work (Apple!!! Pay attention here) is a leasing system. You pay a subscription for a year, then, after a year you have the option of purchasing the songs you listened to most at a reduced cost. This might work. Any input to LiTunes (Leased iTunes)?
It seems to me that Mac owners can’t access Napster songs, because the service is not compatible with OSX. But, say you do have the service. Can you not use a program like Wiretap, and record the song, and save it as an AIFF? Then you would own it. Or is that stealing?
Napster is about choice yet there service doesn’t work on A Mac. Where’s the choice? As far as renting my music, no thanks. I did the math and the end result using a pay to play service sucks! I’ll stick with a service that let’s both PC and Mac users use there service. iTunes!
And I can keep using my music forever.
Mr. Crawford,
Napster to Go is only the subscription end. If you want a copy of the song outside of the subscription, you have to pay the $0.99 download charge. If you do not care to pay, let your subscription lapse or cannot pay because of lack of funds, you access to the music library you have set up is terminated. THis is why so many people are against it. You essentially have nothing to sho for it at the end of the subscription. In most subscription cases you get something: specialized account access (web sites), hard copy (magazing or journal), even a crappy incentive (SI commerative so and so). Napster is giving you nothing other than access to its music files. And they call people who buy an iPod stupid…
Rimglow,
Yes you theoretically can, but quality and future protections may prevent you from doing that. And yes, it is stealing.
soon the RIAA will not allow the rental of music due to the ease of theft
http://blog.kordix.com/marv/archives/000400.html
its illegal but a 14 day free trial attracts this kind of usage
Napster is losing the game all round because they fail to understand their market – in just the same way the record industry has failed.
Consider this: The Napster cat logo worked purrrrfectly with the old P2P service because the character looks anti-establishment and subversive – the cat has a sardonic smile on it face BECAUSE it has knowingly shafted ‘the enemy’ to get its music. The recording-industry-backed new Napster thought keeping the logo would retain all the ‘hip’ associations – and therefore ‘customers’. Problem is the industry-owned cat STILL looks to be knowingly shafting ‘the enemy’ but now its been tamed by ‘big corporate business’, that perceived enemy can now only be the paying customer.
Another problem is: when a spotty student somewhere inevitably works out how to strip the rental code from his songs and keep them – and then publishes the hack on the internet – EVERYONE will use it, get all the thousands songs they’ve ever wanted for free AND quickly cancel their subscription with Napster for fear of being caught.
I cannot wait to see Napster fall flat on its face.
The “unlimited” downloads is also false. The to go compatible players are only 5gb in size. That is hardly unlimited.
Just use Wiretap Pro and every song you have can be capture for good. The Suits will not like this simple approach.
How many days do you think will past before some windows hacker cracks the Napster DRM code?
I reckon give it 2 weeks – and you will be able to download all the songs you want for FREE!!
God Napster is gonna be in the shit!!
The Napster bradn means nothing to anyone under 20 years old.
The brand means nothing.
why pay someone else’s mortgage, when you can pay for your own?
You can purchase the songs or albums you want ON TOP of your monthly fee. So on top of your $3500, you can add the $4000 for buying CDS you want. now you have spent $7500 instead of $4000. WOW what a deal
iSteve,
Wicked observation on the compatible player capacities!
Mix in a bunch of your own music, and that 5GB starts to get really small….
zup
and.. er.. most HD players are iPods..
so Napster is really gonna be a hit in the flash drive market.. which is about to get eaten by the iPod shuffle…
Beautiful huh?
Napster To Go … And When It Does, So Does Your Music.
Neither Napster or iTMS are good for the consumer, although iTMS is a better choice. Napster is a monthly service, just like your cable bill or satellite radio. Only you get to choose what you want to hear. Apple doesn’t offer this but they give you the ability to save your music yourself without incurring a monthly bill. But neither model replaces owning the physical copy of a CD. If I buy a CD, I can always sell it later to a used CD store. Don’t think I’ll ever be able to sell some of my iTMS purchases.
As a Mac user, I must say that I am appalleed by how stupid most of you are making us look. When people subscribe to Napster, they are not paying for music, rather, THEY ARE PAYING FOR A SERVICE THAT PROVIDES THEM WITH MUSIC!!!! Many of you seem to be fixated on the idea that when you stop subscribing, and thereby lose access, Napster is some how screwing you over. Don’t you realize that in subscribing you are paying for a service and the service itself (getting to download and listen to whatever songs you want whenever you want) has value? Of course you dont keep the songs; that is not what you were paying for. You were paying for a service (like satellite radio for example) that provided you with content over the life of your subscription. This is simple economics and it appears that, either though ignorance or blind devotion to our brand, most of you do not understand what you are getting with Napster.
I think Napster is a bad deal, and wont sign up for it just for the same reason I wont sign up for XM or Sirius: all are SERVICES that I do not need in order to listen to the stuff I want to listen to. Please get your arguments against Napster straight. I’m getting tired of being grouped along with people who took Critical Feminist Literature Thoery in college instead of Econ 101.
Take a course in playing well with others.
Now that you have enlighten us with your diatribe. Take a lesson from doPi on the 4th post and see how he managed to say so succinctly without the need of insulting any of us in the process.
Here is toast to you also get tired of posting before the next article triggers your chip on your shoulder bubba.
I honestly think the plan Napster is going by has some merit. Personally, I purchase vast quantities of music off iTunes and from CD’s (I love used CD’s, because they’re cheaper and usually play just fine). I’ve purchased at least twenty or thirty CD’s in the past three or four months (so I’ve spent at least $150 there), as well as the Complete U2 ($100 deal with the U2 iPod) and numerous other things from the iTMS (let’s say another $100). Right there that’s $450 only in the past couple of months (not even a complete year). $15 a month for twelve months is $180. So already I’d be saving lots of money!
You’re right, if Napster failed, I’d lose all my music. If I stopped paying, I’d lose all my music.
But let’s be serious about this: I’ve paid $450 for music in the past couple of months. I’m not going to stop buying music, so I’m going to buy maybe $700 of music for each year for the next couple of years. Napster doesn’t seem like a bad deal for that… As long as it stayed around, it sounds good to me.
But since I am already invested in an iPod, and because I have a Powerbook, I’m limited (though not unhappily) to the iTMS. Come on guys, when will you all start to Think Different?
-Russell
Napster will do just fine, as there are thousands of people who see subscriptions to be a great way to get music. However, Napster will probably not change the way the majority of people listen to music: the iPod. Nor will it change the way people get music: through purchases.
Will Napster go away? Probably not. But it will not change the market much at all. And all of us with iPods will be happy.
This is a minor blip on the landscape.