“Once again, Napster has raised its revenue expectations, with the company’s fourth quarter forecast rising from $14-15m to the most recent prediction of $16.5-17.5m. Napster has gained 143,000 new subscribers, making a grand total of 410,000. And nearly a third of Napster’s US subscribers (56,000) are at universities – which means that the company’s strategy of marketing towards colleges is succeeding, even if those subscriptions may be heavily subsidised,” MusicAlly reports in a story picked up by The Register.
“Some may take this as a sign that students have given up their frugal fondness for filesharing in exchange for a licensed, legitimate lifestyle. But a tip-off we received recently suggests otherwise,” MusicAlly reports. “One of our contacts revealed to us that she and some of her student pals share a single Napster account to reduce the cost of subscribing. Apparently it’s a relatively common practice, at least among these London youngsters, for one person to pay for the £9.95 per month Napster account and then to distribute the username and password among several others – in exchange for favours and drinks. Our contact couldn’t remember exactly how many people she’d given the details to, but stated that she knew for certain at least two other people who used her account on a regular basis.”
“A statement from Napster states that ‘you cannot maintain two accounts simultaneously – if you log into the same account on another machine, the previous user will be logged out within five minutes.’ However, while it is true that during our tests a user would occasionally be logged out, this did not occur every five minutes, nor when any of the computers were simultaneously downloading or playing streams, which continued uninterrupted,” MusicAlly reports.
Full article here.
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