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New Napster Off To A Solid Start
Anonymous Superhero writes "From Wired magazine Napster 2.0 has a sleek design and makes exploring new music a pleasure. The most nagging problem? The confusing licensing issues. A review by Katie Dean." I haven't tried it yet - still using the iTunes store.
I haven't tried it yet - still using the iTunes store.
No kidding. iTunes is great, but I don't use it for music - I use it for the audiobooks. These are not available by *ahem* cheaper means, so I love having iTunes for them.
At $10 a month, the Napster premium service allows customers to stream an unlimited number of songs and listen to Napster's preprogrammed radio stations. For as long as you shell out the fee, you can download tracks and listen to them either online or offline. Stop paying the fee, and you don't get to keep the downloads.
;-)
Sounds like a nice way to get all the stuff you like for 10 bucks a month - given that you have the right tools to get the audio stream into a mp3 - can't be too difficult.
Of course, this would be illegal, so I won't try it (no, really!)
For as long as you shell out the fee, you can download tracks and listen to them either online or offline. Stop paying the fee, and you don't get to keep the downloads.
Right there is why I don't think it will catch on. People don't like the idea of paying until the end of time for something they have bought. Also, what happens when Napster 2.0 goes out of business, do your downloaded songs dissapear as well?
While I understand the reason, I would find it extremely disappointing to hear a bunch of songs streamed and then stop subscribing and realize all that money had been in vain....
I haven't downloaded music probably for over a year. Perhaps it says something about me, but as I age (28) I like less and less of whats out there and don't even have a desire to download it for free let alone for $.99.
The only time any more that I will download music probably is for a song I remember from my teens or some classical music.
I suppose the radio feature is useful (to get you hooked on new music and to get you to buy new songs).
An industry leader has already emerged in the digital music business -- Apple's iTunes. They've set the bar and I'm not sure how that bar can be raised.
Does this new Napster service offer anything better than iTunes? The article claims more songs are available using Napster, but then goes on to say that some are only available as streamed audio, and then only to those who pay the $10/month. Of the 500,000 songs, how many are truly available as downloadable tracks?
iTunes, without requiring any purchases, comes with a few hundred radio stations, all of them free. Napster radio stations are only available to those who pay the $10/month (according to the article).
So where's the innovation? The industry is struggling to catch up to Apple, and Apple has a huge lead. I can't think of any feature I'd like to see in iTunes that isn't already there, and what is there is done really well.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
I'm sorry, I'm not even an audiophile and I can hear a difference between a 128Kbps AAC and a FLAC. Yeah you can buy one song at a time. But that's only good for those pop singles.
So for $10/album I get no media, no notes, and less quality. Or I can get a used CD for the same price/cheaper and rip to 256Kbps myself.
Yeah I guess it saves me the trip into the hated sun world, but are people really finding this worth it?
In other news iTunes is a great program. Some flaws, and it eats RAM, but still fun to use.
-- taking over the world, we are.
They are pressuring, cajoling and enticing labels to release music in WMA with the promise of it being pirate-proof. At that same time, they hope this will marginalize Mac OS and Linux (which also doesn't have a WMA 9 port).
I can't witness Napster's sleek new design, because it's a Windows-only client. That leaves me with these choices: Buy outrageously-priced CDs (haven't for two years and don't plan to until I see competitive pricing), "steal" music off of P2P (not my cup of tea), or use a competing distributor like Magnatune. I guess since Magnatune has streaming for previewing, competitive pricing, works with Linux (or any OS with a decent media player), and has no DRM, I will put up with their limited selection and they will get my money.
It's pretty obvious that the major music industry distributors have one shared brain cell. The more they lobby, prosecute and price-fix, the less money they make off of potential buyers like me, who aren't "pirating", but are sick of taking collateral damage from the battle. It doesn't take an economics genius to realize that $10 is better than $0 (because I'm not paying $20 thankyouverymuch). This is how it works RIAA: You don't call the shots, the consumer does. If you want my money, deliver what I want or get nothing.
BTW, does customs allow CDRWs to be shipped from Canada? I'd like to not fund the ongoing RIAA battle, because I have nothing to do with it. I figure it's time now to actively avoid funding this nonsense. I've bought the thousands of dollars worth of CDs in the past. What did I get for it? A 100% increase in music prices, only top 40 garbage to choose from, DRM controls, a tax on an unrelated item (I burn data CDs, not illegal copies of songs), ISP witch hunts, and legal maneuvering to stamp out viable competitive pricing through better technology.
I think from now on, whenever I spent $20 on entertainment other than on RIAA's partners in crime, I'll send them a nice e-mail telling them that they just lost out on profit because their products are not a good value, and they refuse to bargain with consumers. They may laugh at it now, but in three years, when their sales have dropped off 25 per cent, it won't be so funny anymore.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
To everyone who says that Napster should just pack up and leave since iTunes already does everything they do and better, get educated. I'd rather a market in which music distribution systems like iTunes and Napster compete because guess what, competition is what keeps these companys developing. If iTunes becomes the sole provider of legal music over the internet, no one has won except Apple since they would no longer have to put as much effort into R&D, which is both expensive and time consuming. Lack of competition often leads to stagnation in the realm of technology, just look at IE as of late.
This argument is ignoring either one of their merits as companies/products, but the point is, don't attack Napster or any other company in this market just because they aren't iTunes and do not attach your pride and ego to iTunes as its just a product designed to be sold, just like Napster.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
Yes, that must be why Itunes are selling so many songs and people are raving about it. Because it's doomed.
How did the artist afford a studio?
How did step 5, Artist becomes popular, translate into money in step 6? Are you saying she sold advertising? Who listened to the ads in this model, and when did they listen to those ads? On TV, if that's your example, there are commercial breaks. In a P2P, song-by-song model, there are no such breaks. What, product placements? In the form of lyrics about Frosted Flakes?
Are you saying artists themselves are going to be able to make decent deals with advertisers? Where was the step where the artist boned up on contract law?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.