Napster crossbreeds streaming, download plans
Cat comes back. Again. Again.
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Napster - the outfit that shares a name with a bygone music piracy pioneer sued into oblivion - is back with a new $5-per-month streaming/download hybrid plan following its purchase by Best Buy last year.
For a fiver a month, US subscribers can now stream music from Napster's claimed catalog of over 7 million songs as well as download and keep five DRM-free MP3s each month. Napster had previously been charging $12.99 for streaming music only.
Aside from the US-only aspect of Napster's new price regime, the big downside is that the streaming music is available only on a PC or laptop. At an age when when world+dog has a portable player or smartphone with online access, it's rather disappointing they're keeping it immobile. The company still offers a $15.00 per month Napster To Go streaming plan with certain US mobile carriers, but that's a different beast altogether.
To compare with similar services, Microsoft's Zune Pass service charges $15 for streaming music and 10 permanent song downloads per month. Rhapsody charges $15 a month for streaming tunes. The biz's 800-pound gorilla, iTunes, theoretically charges between 70 cents and $1.29 per song download, although if you actually find a tune under 99 cents you should consider spotting Where's Wally on a professional level. ®
COMMENTS
downloads
I want to pay ~20-30p per song to download DRM free mp3's / flac's from a catalogue of all the worlds music and put these songs on any device of my choosing, make backups and share them with small numbers of close friends...
Which part of this don't the serial FAILS that run the music "business" understand...?
Left my cake out in the rain
so basically it's a buck a track, given you can stream music for free elsewhere. Clearly this is a BARGAIN and will end piracy for ever.
US?
If this new Crapster is US only, shouldn't it be "Where's Waldo?"
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