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Napster To Campaign Aggressively Against iPod
rocketjam writes "Forbes reports that Napster plans an aggressive marketing campaign against Apple's iPod as part of its subscription service full launch later this quarter. Napster's service uses Microsoft's Janus technology to enable DRM protected music files 'bought' through subscription services to be transferred from a PC to a portable music player. Napster CEO Chris Gorog said the company is betting heavily that their monthly 'all you can eat' subscription service will win the battle for online digital music services, claiming, 'It's exactly what consumers want to do. Napster To Go is very similar to the P2P experience.' He believes the best way to market the service is to emphasize its advantages over iTunes and its iPod-only compatibility. 'We're going to be communicating to people that it's stupid to buy an iPod.' Maybe I'm too old to get it, but I fail to see the attraction of paying a monthly fee for as long as I want to have access to my music." Of course, if Napster To Go supported iPod, they'd have a much larger install base to convince to use their service, instead of still pleading people to buy a portable player with compatible DRM installed.
It states repeatedly that you can get MP3's to put on a Napster-supporting MP3 player.
From what I understand, their service and players are using WMA, with DRM of course.
MP3 != WMA. These are both very specific things. Had they just said "songs", or "music" it would not be an issue. They chose to say MP3 and I fail to see how thats not an outright lie. That oversight alone could be the nail in the coffin for them.
Phillips had similar issues with the RIAA labeling DRM-enabled CD's as official "Compact Discs." Phillips owns the rights to that name, and since the DRM broke the ability for those disks to play in many players, Phillips felt it was damaging their IP to claim they were CD's. They sued and won.
once you go slack, you never go back
Napster you have zero songs
You're 100% correct. I saw some of their new TV spots during the super bowl, and if you watch carefully, there is fine print at the bottom of the screen that says something like "Songs expire if you cancel your monthly membership"...
This will fail completely in the same way that Circuit City's Divx fiasco failed. People have proven time and time again that they don't want their media to expire. When they buy something, they want to OWN it, not just rent it until MegaMediaCorp decides they want it back.
Also, because there is no iPod support they are only able to sell to the less than 10% of the HD marketplace that isn't iPod and supports Microsoft DRM.
So, to break it down for you:
Lame product... check!
No target market... check!
Draconian DRM... check!
Their marketing department must all have MBAs from the Prestigious University of dot.Bomb, class of 2001...
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
I'm going to laugh my ass off when some 15 year old releases a hack that strips the DRM out of these Napster songs. Millions and millions of "rented" songs will become permanent non-DRM overnight.
Er, even if (and I say if) you are right that it's only 1 cent profit per song, Apple have sold 250 million songs to date, and are selling ongoing at a rate of 1.5 million a day, or ~ half a billion songs a year.
I think a 10-cent profit is more likely, making their yearly projection $50 million, which is hardly pocket change...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
it's amazing to me that while the dot-bomb killed off programmers and rank and file employees, while executives keep making more and more...for this?
good businesses are built by innovation, not by looking in the 'what's hot' section of the paper to come up with ideas...
a few years ago, while everybody and their brother was trying to figure out how to be the 'next Napster,' Apple was busy innovating, and that's why they are the lead dog in this race...
meanwhile, my wife and i, who are stupid enough to own 3 iPods, and 30,000 songs (some bought from iTunes) will never be stupid enough to subscribe to Napster!
good luck--see you on the way down, Gorog...
WTF are you talking about? The grandparent post doesn't say anything about Ogg, Linux or DRM with regard to this service. To me it appears to say, plain and simple, having to pay in perpetuity for something that most people want to keep is asinine and will be a failure.
Middle school and High school kids are interested in the hits now.
I was in middle school and high school between 1985 and 1991. Guess what time period a great deal of the music on my iPod is from? Do you think any kid that age today will want to end up paying Napster $3600 ($15 * 12 months * 20 years) to have consistent access to the songs that bring back fond memories of his youth from now until 2025?
In short: Fuck, no!
Most people don't change-- they hold dear the music from when they were growing up. My parents' listened to oldies stations on the radio because they liked the music from the time when they grew up. They thought the music I listened to was shit. I still listen mostly to stuff from the 80s, when was growing up, and I think the vast majority of today's music is shit, compared to it. There's no reason to think that this cycle will stop with the kids today-- though the idea of hearing Britney Spears on an oldies station in a couple decades is rather amusing.
~Philly
Actually, you can compare this to satellite radio. They both stop working when you stop paying. The cost per month is simular. They both stream music. The quality is simular. With Napster, you get the advantage of being able to listen to whatever you want when you want to (provided it's in Napster's library). You can also get copies of tracks to store on your computer and portable music player. With satellite, you get the option of streaming radio in your car, or a dedicated unit for your stereo, or the option of buying a pricy portable player. Not to mention more variety in the number of streams offered.
Perhaps Napster should try to convert satellite radio folks over? It may work pretty well, though it would be tough to get convert the people who use it in their cars.
Yeah, they changed their plans a *lot* too..
"eMusic offers three subscription plans:
eMusic Basic: $9.99 per month
40 MP3 downloads per billing month
Unlimited transfers
Unlimited CD burning
eMusic Plus: $14.99 per month
65 MP3 downloads per billing month
Unlimited transfers
Unlimited CD burning
eMusic Premium: $19.99 per month
90 MP3 downloads per billing month
Unlimited transfers
Unlimited CD burning
Once you are an eMusic subscriber, you will continue to be billed monthly until you cancel your subscription. "
When i was a subscriber, they implemented these changes and forced you onto one of the new plans - but they would not let me cancel until my 12 month subscription was up. *THAT* pissed me off to no end. They completely yanked the All-You-Can-Eat, limited it to 40 mp3s per *month* and then said "No, you cannot cancel. Bugger off!"
Unbelievable gall they had. I wrote them, told them how upset I was about their nerve, and cancelled the credit card that it was billing.