Subscription-Based Music

[Calliander]

Perhaps this should be in Music Discussion, but this is less about individual bands and more about online music services. However, move if necessary.

Anyway, I've been hearing and seeing a lot of commercials for Napster recently. Since it has been back they have been aggressively marketing the hell out of it as a competitor to the iTunes Music Store. The ads directly attack iTMS since the key part of them is that you don't pay 99 cents per song. It's always something to the effect of, "It could cost zillions of dollars to fill up your MP3 player with 99 cent songs, but with Napster it's 15 dollars!"

So, for $15 a month, you can download as many songs as you want into your MP3 player. According to the terms of use:

• The Tracks and Materials are owned by Napster, its business partners, affiliates and/or licensors, as applicable, and are protected by intellectual property laws.
• A "Purchased Track" is a Track that you may (1) save to the hard drives of up to three (3) of your personal computers and play back at any time, (2) burn to a CD and/or (3) transfer to a compatible portable device. Any security technology that is provided with a Purchased Track is an inseparable part of it.
• Napster may at any time lose the right to make certain Tracks and/or Materials available. In such event, you will no longer be able to obtain these Tracks and/or Materials or to utilize the "Sync/Restore" function for Purchased Tracks.

Sounds, for the most part, like iTMS. The kicker, of course, is the very fine print:

*It is necessary to maintain a Napster subscription in order to continue access to songs downloaded through the Napster service.

Now here's the question. Since you can burn the songs you download during your subscription, what will Napster be doing to make sure that you can't just re-import those songs as regular MP3's off the burned disc? In one month, with a high-speed connection, you can certainly download a ton of songs, burn them, and then reimport them. This activity, of course, is expressly described as "illegal" by Napster, but it's the only selling point. It's the only thing making Napster good and, in fact, a better deal than 99 cents per song. Why? Because if I pay for something, I want to keep it.

Am I missing something?

[Tragic]

Hm... that's a really good question. That seems like the ultimate loop hole. There must be something they've set up to stop it.

[Fe 26]

eh, they may be doing it that way to make shit look legal to the MPAA/RIAA. Those guys are retarded and probably won't consider people doing what you described above.

Well, untill they google up this thread that is.

[Rumpy]

Are they just mp3s or are they using some wacky codec or something?

[MarkRyan]

Are they just mp3s or are they using some wacky codec or something?

You probably get something from Napster that's like what you get from iTunes: a proprietary audio format that only the Napster player (and Napster supported portal devices) can play.

[Gohron]

This thread brings up a question I've been wondering about, does the iPod play normal .mp3s as well? Like, can you upload music from your computer or is it only compatible with the music you get from their "store"?

[Schlep]

You can't burn CD's with tracks you get as part of the subscription, only purchased tracks.

The iPod will play MP3, AAC, and Apple Lossless files.

[voltz]

As part of the napster subscription if you haven't payed for any tracks seperatly, you have to keep paying the service or loose everything you downloaded.

[bandit]

$15 a month to download songs and be able to transfer them to your MP3 player and listen to on your computer. If you want to burn them onto CD, you cant. There are some ways around it tho.

I just sold my Napster subscription for $46 on eBay considering I got it for FREE (iRiver H10 deal)

[stormy]

http://blog.kordix.com/marv/archives/000400.html