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Napster Blames Microsoft for Lack of Sales
An anonymous reader writes "AustralianIT is reporting that Napster has blamed their inability to compete with Apple's iTunes on technical glitches from Microsoft. From the article: '"There is no question that their execution has been less than brilliant over the last 12 months," Napster chairman and chief executive Chris Gorog said at a New York conference. "Our business does rely on Microsoft's digital rights management software and our business model also relies on Microsoft's ecosystem of device manufacturers."'"
Apple doesn't allow that so you can't.
v irgin/
e ction=business&id=1769
"Virgin demands Apple license iTunes DRM"
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/06/apple_vs_
"iTunes, DRM and competition law"
http://www.reckon.co.uk/open/iTunes
"Apple Avoids French Courts Opening FairPlay DRM"
http://digital-lifestyles.info/display_page.asp?s
I know Apple is seeing as gods here and this will be modded down to oblivious but hey face it, in this field they are as monopolistic as microsoft. Why is it so hard for some companies to play nice with each other ?
No, they do not. They have always had the option of implementing their own scheme.
No, in practise they haven't unless they
a) want to get into the DRM system market, which requires a completely different business model than being a music service. The two big ones (MS's WMA and Apple's FairPlay) have other business reasons to be there, Napster doesn't.
b) release an iPod-a-like. Otherwise they have to go after all sorts of different hardware manufacturers and end up exactly where they are today, only now they are the ones taking all the costs of spreading the DRM system.
Apple has the one shop (iTMS), one application (iTunes), one player (iPod), (one Reich?) methodology. Napster is lightyears away from doing that. The best they could do would be to blow a ton of cash on being a half-assed Microsoft.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I agree that Napster is indelibly associated with piracy, even though it's been years since such a thing existed. That funky headphone-wearing-cat will always be a pirate flag to those of us who were around for Napster's glory days. This new company's early advertising promised some badass 'tude, but couldn't match their ads and certainly couldn't live up to the original Napster. Their more recent advertising -- "Have everything - Own nothing" -- was just an annoying reminder that the real Napster is long gone.
"Really, the only hope for Napster, Rhapsody, and Real is to create a new DRM standard and try to convince the music companies and the hardware makers to adopt it. Microsoft's attempt to do so has already failed."
I love this comment, along with all the pro-apple comments that are going on in this thread. But consider this: If Microsoft was the monopoly in this field and other companies (like the beloved Napster brand) were having trouble competing because they were having to "get by" without the Microsoft system, everyone would be up in arms and demanding MS used open standards, bashing DRM, preaching the name of the small, independent companies fighting against MS tyrany..
Apple is using a proprietary DRM system - both bad words on slashdot - and the small companies are having trouble competing because of it. Why aren't we complaining? Oh yes... because no matter what the situation, Apple is always right and MS is always wrong. I forgot.
Napster is synonymous with free downloads. Not paid for ones.
"...let's blame used CDs."
They blew their wad on that way too soon.
Back in the mid90s, the RIAA decided to employ their highest grossing artist to go around and try to explain why Used CDs were killing the industry. Garth Brooks made a GREAT pitch to the Walmart crowd -- all of whom realized that a man with more mansions than Saddam had palaces wasn't doing half as bad as they were knowing their doublewide could get repossessed and hauled away at any point.
I stood behind Metalica when they stood up against Napster -- there is *NEVER* an excuse to take something someone else created and duplicate it to the point that you are essentially a competitor that left unchecked can put you out of business -- and done so by your fans.
But when Brooks was doing this years earlier, he decided to change a paradigm that had been legal for over a thousand years...'he' didn't even want his stuff in libraries. If you want rid of cd, you needed to just throw it in the trash. No doctrine of first sale that has always been in copyright.
But no one took this seriously and there were laws enacted to actually strenghten the idea of selling used physical media like this. And that is why I still buy a majority of my music via CD and its subset of used CD. I don't see any prevaling need to be allowed to sell my iTunes purchases -- I knew going into it that the paradigm was such that I tied to the music -- but CDs -- no one is going to make this argument again for a long time.
Again, the music industry blew their wad on this years ago...
The real problem is Microsofts DRM just does not work.
It doesn't work with either of my mp3 players even though they claim to support it.
It doesn't work very well if you want to burn cd's either.
(( You eat up your copy license when the track is converted not when the CD is burned. This causes several problems not least you select a buch of tracks to burn, media player converts them all eating up a "copy" for each track then decides there is not enough room on the CD and bails out -- 16 rights to copy which you bought and paid for are trashed )).
I do not own a single piece of Apple hardware yet I use Itunes for downloading music, or, just buy (or borrow) the CD.
Old COBOL programmers never die. They just code in C.
Because iTunes allows people to do what they've always wanted to do, which is buy music. Napster's business model consists of "pay us each month and you can listen to any of the music we own, but stop paying us and you lose it all." The only people on earth who thought that was a good idea were Napster's accountants. It's not even rent-to-own, it's just pay-to-listen. They're trying to market it like it's iTunes, but it's really more like XM Radio without the nifty receiver.
"Apparently they came up with a new twist..."
Actually, there's nothing new here. It's the age old story of the software industry:
1) Rely on Microsoft.
.
.
1+x) Die a horrible death.
Although I think Napster has other facets of its business that may account for its eventual demise outside of Microsoft, such as marketing a product that customers don't want -- highly publicized crippling of digital music files.
"Running key business functions on" and "business model depends on" are two very different things. Microsoft's email system too buggy? Migrate to another. Windows too flaky? Migrate to another. Office apps, databases, etc... same thing. If Napster migrated from Windows DRM... oops, no users can listen on a portable device. Apple had to get around this by manufacturing their own device and their own DRM - unless Napster takes that route, they are 100% dependent on a single vendor - Microsoft.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
"I know Apple is seeing as gods here and this will be modded down to oblivious but hey face it, in this field they are as monopolistic as microsoft." You're not going to be modded down because you point out Apple is a monopoly. You are going to be modded down because you fail to understand that being a monopoly in and of itself is not a bad thing. What Apple has done is entirely _opt-in_.
The RIAA insisted on DRM. And Apple responded. Now Apple controls the market, much to the chagrins of the RIAA. But hey, they wanted DRM. And don't expect Apple to drop it anytime soon. They have discovered what DRM really means. Its not copy protection. Its vendor lock-in. If the RIAA really wants digital music to succeed, they need to drop DRM now. That will level the playing field both in online stores and digital players.
What kills me is the number of posters lighting into Apple for having a closed system. And that's what it is. The Mac, closed system. iPod iTunes, closed system.
But you've got Yahoo, Napster and 50 million PlaysForSure groups complaining that Apple won't license FairPlay to them, so that they can compete. And I don't blame Apple. Call me a fanboy if you want.
If I were Apple, I'd do the same damn thing. None of those who want to get in on things have supported Apple's hardware very well or at all, have they? Yahoo hasn't upgraded their version of Messenger for Mac in 3 years. How much do you want to bet that none of these stores supports Mac users? I have a non iPod branded music player; can I go to their sites and download music? No. Microsoft doesn't even MAKE Media Player for Mac anymore, and when they did, it sucked. And how ironic it is that the iPod craze is fueling Apple hardware sales?
The initial iPod wasn't even PC compatible. iTMS either. My only choice for stateside mainstream purchased music was iTunes. They were created in part, to offer to Mac users what PC users were getting. They were getting it poorly, but hey. But as usual, the minute you open up your product to those who poo poo it and talk about Mac users as fringe players it's a different story. The iPod takes off, and people are living the iLife.
Apple licensed FairPlay (in some form) to Motorola. There was a long relationship there; up until Motorola spun off Freescale, Moto chips were driving Macs. Same with HP. For all it's flaws, HP imaging hardware always had decent Mac support. Apple licensed the HP branded iPod. HP canned the agreement, not Apple. That tells me Apple is willing to deal with others. BUt they are under no obligation to deal with those who aren't bringing shit to the table or halfway support their hardware.
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...