The Nine Lives of Napster

lisa langsdorf writes "There's an interesting article on BusinessWeek.com today about Napster's race to gain greater market share in the music download business. According to a recent study, Apple has 75% of the pay for music download market, but Napster could soon gain more market share due to a new upcoming market push. BusinessWeek says: 'Napster could start to increase market share in the more profitable business of selling monthly subscriptions, where customers can listen to -- but not own -- as many songs as they want each month for $9.95. While Napster is far behind RealNetworks' Rhapsody service, AOL's MusicNet, and others, it's taking the lead again in the old Napster's stomping ground: college campuses.'"

Comments

Does anyone know

[namidim]

How a monthly subscribtion eventually filters down to the artists? It seems such a system would make it hard to do the "for each time a user listens to X's song they get hit with a bat by the RIAA" analysis.

Re:Does anyone know

[TheLinuxSRC]

How a monthly subscribtion eventually filters down to the artists?

That is an excellent point and might I add another. It seems the public wants, no, demands portability with their music. Are you supposed to only listen to Napster's offerings on your computer or do they have some DMX/Napster thing-a-majig coming? And if so we are back to "How do we pay the artist?".

just my thoughts....

Just curious

[stratjakt]

Why all the hooplah about all these "me-too" online music downloading businesses?

I mean, I know you all are stiff for Apple, so anything they do just has to be covered as innovative and cool. But Napster is not napster anymore, the name was merely bought.

Big fricking deal.

I just dont care that the new Napster is going to start a big marketing push. That's what businesses do, duh.

Re:Just curious

[transient]

128K AAC sounds like crap, same as MP3

This is your opinion and you're entitled to it, but there are millions of people who either disagree with you or find the quality difference to be negligible.

I can only listen to it on approved devices which cost 10x as much as CD hardware.

Or you can burn a CD and listen to it on CD hardware.

I can only listen to it on computers that I have "registered" due to the DRM applied to the content.

You're right. And?

Now tell me again why I am supposed to care?

It's a new delivery mechanism that supports modern technology, and it's neatly packaged inside a decent music player. It has advantages and disadvantages. So do CDs. I don't give a rat's ass if you use the iTunes Music Store or not, but when you talk about it with such force ("to hell with iTunes"), it just makes you sound crotchety and old-fashioned.

And when you...

[Creepy Crawler]

Unsubscribe, you lose all 'rights' to play?

Dont do DRM.

Why Should I bother?

[Anonymous Coward]

Posted Anon for obvious reasons.

Why should I even bother with any of these pay for download schemes? Lets be serious here.

They dont provide any CONSUMER Benifit over the "shady" p2p services.

They give me no incentive to switch. The quality of the files are oft worse then what i can get illegally. You pay for something, and dont get anything tangible in return. The selection is severly limited. And there are file restrictions.

There is a very easy way to fix this whole problem. Put up a "donate" button on artist's websites so I can fling them a few bucks.

Unfortunatly, due to politics, this is mindboggingly complex. Im getting really tired of putting up with half-assed efforts that are simply a mediocre nod to the population.

Remember, we are fighting with people who think that free, instant, worldwide access to much of the art created in the past 100 years is a BAD THING.

ugh. just ugh.

Re:Sorry...

[cnkeller]

I forsee that I'll be about as interested in owning music as I am in owning an encyclopedia. Welcome to the on demand world.

I didn't read the article, nor do I have any plans on checking out the service. Having said that, this is a pretty lame analogy for most of us. I can't recall the last time I wanted to jam out with a good article on the Vietnam War while cruising up highway 280 to san francisco. But, when I feel like listening to Front 242 (hello 90's music) and putting the transmission in to Sport mode, thank god I have my iPod and a non-RF interface. And when was the last time you wanted to share a good piece of reference material at a party?

Let's face it, a lot of things *may* work on demand (movies seem to be what most people think of), but music is something that people like to share in a portable fashion: in the car, at a party, on the boat, wherever you spend your time.