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Preview the New Napster
*ZiggyP0P* writes "Napster has finally released a preview/teaser of their new business model. Seems kind of sad that so much work will be done on something that noone will use. Quite interesting the part about their own file format..."
That "nobody" will use the new service is a bit of a misstatement; I think that there will be a dedicated, but small user base - certainly, nothing like the huge usage Napster once had, but if they are able to create a subscription model that has a good enough balance between Cost/Hassle and Product that Joe User will choose it over messing about with AudioGalaxy, there will certainly be a user base.
Expect a PR campaign simultaneous to the release painting those who use Napster2 as hip, aware people while those who use others as music pirates.
The PR campaign won't be as scary as the legislative offensive launched to outlaw music trading apps without DRM... Napster and the industry will be on the same side.
In other words, this isn't the end of Napster, not by a long shot. And I suspect that, of all the fee-based services, the one from Napster will be more forgiving than the one that MS puts out.
It will fail for entirely different reasons. Primary amongst them is the fact that plain old mp3 files are all people really want. The hardware players people own play mp3s, the files they already have are mp3s, and and no one likes restrictions on copying their files.
Not that charging a monthly fee won't work against them, it will, but there are still a number of people who would gladly have paid a monthly fee for what napster WAS. What it has/will become is something no one wanted or asked for napster to make.
And the final problem is that by now a solid napster replacement in the form of Morpheus/Kazaa/grokster has come out. Napster waited way too long. They will always have a place in history, but they will never have a place in the future.
That is what Napster will become if the new incarnation is widely adopted.
.nap files, making Napster the number one controller of digital rights on the planet.
.nap files so that compliance is 100% in that arena.
.nap DRM schema so that the other sharing services can be brought into line.
It will act like a massive distributed file converter, changing billions of MP3 files into
SONY made a small attempt at this with thier proprietary format and portable player that would not play MP3s. It came with software to convert your MP3s to thier format. It bombed.
The new Napster a brilliant idea on paper; use everyones bandwidth and existing mp3s to create a billion file pool of locked music upon which royalties must be paid, in a fully automated system.
The record companies save having to host and convert thier catalogues, and have a ready made system for effortlessly controlling billions of files.
Radio stations will then be compelled to play from
Next of course, they will attempt to legislate that all other formats comply with the
If we are not careful its "Bye Bye" clean Ogg Vorbis, and any other tool that helps you use and share music the way that you used to.
Lets see who signs up for it. What a story.
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One thing I don't understand: why keep harping about "sharing?" As I read this -- the new Napster FAQ -- you no longer share music, right?
You simply connect to Napster, Inc and grab your limited tracks? So this is essentially a crippled version of the "jukebox in the sky" model that everyone has been talking about but no one can implement?
I mean, this is like MP3.com back before they got bitch-slapped by the RIAA, right? When you stored your music in a "locker" and could access it anywhere? (Which remains an interesting idea, although I have no idea how it works now on MP3.com. Last time I checked, all but two of my songs were "locked down" and a pop-up let me know that MP3.com were "working diligently" to restore the music in my locker. Sorta like the same lame rhetoric that Napster has: "We're working as fast as we can to get you MP3s to play on your MP3 player.")
Now, okay, maybe someone can explain this to me. I don't mean this to be a troll or flamebait. I'm actually curious about this: why in the world would I *pay* Napster simply to get a crippled version of (take your pick) Morpheus?
Granted, it's nice to see that artists are going to get paid. But -- again -- maybe I'm missing something here -- but if the RIAA four years had foresight enough to deal with the MP3 onslaught in a shrewd, savvy way, we'd (a) have the great big jukebox in the sky at this point and (b) the artists (at this point) *would* be getting paid.
So by supporting Napster -- or MusicNet or PressPlay -- what I'm essentially doing is two things: (1) paying protection so as not to get fingered by the RIAA and (2) supporting the RIAA in their quest to *litigate* technology out of the marketplace.
This new Napster is "approved" technology where the old technologies are maverick technologies, unapproved, and therefore illegal?
I get the sense that Napster will become some sort of litmus test for the RIAA. It's going to be one of the incubators (MusicNet and PressPlay being the others) to see how profit can be derived from on-line music.
And again, I got no problem with giving artists their fair-share, but I'm very uncomfortable with the RIAA being in the middle.
What I'd like to see is a Napster that takes the RIAA out of the equation. I'd like to be able to give Bob Dylan or whomever my five cent listening fee and know that it's going into Dylan's pockets. I don't want some fat-cat exec skimming 4.5 cents from that nickel in order to support his Lexus habit or the fact that he or she has to pay rent on his overbig house in the Hamptons.
Napster? PressPlay? Forget it.