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Rhapsody To Acquire Napster
tekgoblin writes "Earlier today Rhapsody, the biggest premium on-demand music service in the U.S., announced that they would be acquiring Napster and finalizing the purchase of the company by the end of November. Best Buy, a huge global name in consumer electronics retail, is the current owner of Napster. Best Buy will only be keeping a minority stake after the sale of the company, while Rhapsody will acquire all Napster subscribers and additional assets."
So they're getting Jim AND Randy?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
This would have been big news... ten years ago. =P
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
I remember when Best Buy had some kind of partnership with Rhapsody. Then they dumped Rhapsody and went with Napster. Now they're dumping Napster off on the company they originally dumped.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
I'm subscribed to both. I like Rhapsody's iPhone player, library, and playlist options. Napster has different music, and since you get MP3 downloads along with access to their entire libary, in my case it paid for itself.
Both Rhapsody are essentially 'music on demand', and in my case, where I work across different computers and like finding new music all the time, it works out pretty well for me. I don't recommend it for everybody, but I don't understand why it's poo-poo'd so much, either.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Screw you, Lars.
Every time I see one of these mergers this comes to mind.
Well, that and the Looney Tunes cliche of two characters grabbing each other in mid-air before plummeting to the earth below.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
- I pick what I want to listen to when I want to listen to it.
- The songs are cached so I can listen to them off-line.
- 10 seconds after the desire to hear a particular song not on my playlist I'm listening to it.
- Lots of comedy albums etc, too.
- Rhapsody's music search has been pretty darned good at finding songs I want to hear.
- If I pop onto a new machine I just log in and start listening to my music right away.
- With Napster you pay $60 for a year's access to their music and you get 60 mp3 downloads.
- No ads. Rhapsody's music store recommends songs/albums all the time but there are not banner ads or audio ads.
Show me a free alternative that covers all of these bases (excluding the Mp3 one...) and I'd be happy to try it out.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Cool! My dad can finally download 8-tracks legally!
Not quite. None of the downloads contain the mid song fade out, the THUNK noise, and then the song fading back in. Its not quite the same experience. ;-)
The only decent free streaming service that I'm aware of is Pandora. Which is great, when you don't want to micromanage what you're listening to (particularly since you can't). I subscribe to Rhapsody because I can create a playlist of exactly what songs I want to hear, listen to almost anything on a whim, and I don't have to have the songs on my phone first. Their library isn't exhaustive (whose is?), but it's pretty good for what you get, and certainly more than what I could store on my phone.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I think Bob Cesca's animation is what you were looking for.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Napster isn't dead yet? That's almost as surprising as Rhapsody not being dead yet!
I look at this more as a desperate merger than "omg Rhapsody is getting ALL the Napster user base!"