# Napster By Subscription=Death? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 10, 2001, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/napster-by-subscription-death/53904 "2001-02-10T08:49:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2001, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/napster-by-subscription-death/53904/1 "2001-02-10T08:49:53Z")
- - - I never got into using Napster. Now of course, word comes that it will go to subscription soon. Napster had basically two kinds of music on it: commercially unavailable music, either out pf print or unlicensed recordings (either live or studio), -and regular commercially released stuff (for free). If it goes legit I suppose the unlicensed stuff is gonna disappear pretty quick, which leaves only the regular commercial stuff, which you can order yourself assuming you’re willing to pay for it. ~ Now I might be a bit narrow-minded here, but I tended to believe that most people who used it to get the regular commercial stuff were simple freeloaders; I’ll be amazed if 10% of the previous number of people are paying to use it six months from now. What’s the word? Is Napster history? Is everybody hip going to go to some other free trading system? Or have they done so already? - MC ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2001, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/napster-by-subscription-death/53904/2 "2001-02-10T09:17:47Z")
Napster may be history, but I betcha that there’ll be a half-dozen Napster Clones on the market within a month of it’s death. I, of course, simply say, “Dammit, go hunt through porn sites to find your music the Old Fashioned way!” ---
**Author:** ![Wonko\_The\_Sane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/258eb7/32.png) [@Wonko\_The\_Sane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wonko_The_Sane)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2001, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/napster-by-subscription-death/53904/3 "2001-02-10T14:04:32Z")
I’m with the Spoofester. ---
**Author:** ![lolagranola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ea5d25/32.png) [@lolagranola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lolagranola)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2001, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/napster-by-subscription-death/53904/4 "2001-02-10T16:57:29Z")
I heard that Napster is going subscription based in July. There are other programs that allow file trading, although I haven’t seen any that are limited to MP3 files. If Napster remains exactly as is, and charges a low monthly fee, I will still use it out of convenience. If it changes significantly (which I suspect it will) and/or the fee seems a bit steep, then I’m out. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2001, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/napster-by-subscription-death/53904/5 "2001-02-10T17:16:33Z")
I love Napster. I’m a freeloader to some degree. Most of the stuff I already had and just wanted an easy way to compile a la carte c.d.'s of my own creation. And I must say I have compiled some awesome c.d’s. There are a few songs, however, that I had never heard of before I accidentally ventured upon them. For instance, I saw a clip of Brian Boitano skating to a beautiful song and the announcer said it was by Savage Garden. I searched Napster for Savage Garden and put in the title “Free” and voila! I downloaded it and have incorporated it into one of my c.d’s. Now this may be “freeloading” but I will also guarantee you that I don’t have the disposable income to fork over $17 for a c.d. that might contain a song I liked. So Savage Garden wasn’t going to get royalties from me anyway. As far as paying for it, if Napster offers snipets of songs that you can preview before downloading, it will be a plus for me. Also if they charge a fair price, I will subscribe. I’d be surprised if all the record companies don’t offer a la carte music, on a fee basis, very soon. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2001, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/napster-by-subscription-death/53904/6 "2001-02-10T17:35:47Z")
From a magazine article I read, some 90-95% of Napster users said they would stop using it once they had to pay. I imagine that even those who are willing to pay will think twice about sending that check in on the second month when they see that the pool of music has decreased by 90-95%. Yeah, I think Napster is probably dead but the act of trading MP3s is far from gone. ---
**Author:** ![hypergirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/49beb7/32.png) [@hypergirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hypergirl)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2001, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/napster-by-subscription-death/53904/7 "2001-02-10T19:28:22Z")
I love Napster. But if I had to pay for it, I would have to stop using it. I have no money and even if I did, I’m a cheapskate. Maybe if I had a faster computer I might consider it, but as is, it takes a half hour to download a song. ---
**Author:** ![Anamorphic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anamorphic/32/3057_2.png) [@Anamorphic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anamorphic)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2001, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/napster-by-subscription-death/53904/8 "2001-02-10T20:46:41Z")
It could definitely spell trouble for Napster. There will no doubt still be free ways to access the music, and most people won’t be willing to pay for it. Which is really a shame. Someone in some record company should’ve seen this coming. MP3s have been around for a few years, and high-speed internet access is not a surprise. Someone should’ve seen Napster coming and made a preemptive strike. I mean, think about it. The record companies get together and make their own version of Napster before it exists, so everyone gets paid. Imagine, two years ago, pre-Napster, a new service starts up. $15 a month to download all the music you want! Hell yeah, I’d sign up, as would pretty much everyone else. But now that it’s been available for free for so long, they aren’t going to have very many takers. A shame, really. The record companies really missed the boat on this one by being short-sighted. ---
**Author:** ![Flymaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c4cdca/32.png) [@Flymaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flymaster)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2001, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/napster-by-subscription-death/53904/9 "2001-02-10T21:10:43Z")
From what I’ve heard, they’re going to charge between $5 and $15, and, so I’ve deciphered, they’re going to host the music on their own servers, which means reliable, fast as hell downloads. Combine this with the fact that they have access to the entire BMG catalog, and are negotiating with other labels to get access to more, I think it could very well be worth paying for, if they’ve got every BMG album organized by date, artist, album and song, encoded at more than 160kb/s. That’s a LOT of music. Plus, the current napster service will remain unchanged, for free. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2001, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/napster-by-subscription-death/53904/10 "2001-02-10T21:21:22Z")
Paying 5 or even 25 dollars more than compensates for all the good music I’d never would have gotten to listen to if it weren’t for Napster. But they are gonna have to improve the software. I’m not spending 15$ a month to have my computer crash 3 times a day. ---
**Author:** ![Sue\_Duhnym](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/91b2a8/32.png) [@Sue\_Duhnym](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sue_Duhnym)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2001, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/napster-by-subscription-death/53904/11 "2001-02-10T21:47:10Z")
I’d pay without hesitation even on a song by song basis. I can think of hundreds of CDs I haven’t bought, simply because I couldn’t justify buying the whole disk for only one song. For instance, Fishbone’s song, ‘Ugly’. I Don’t like Fishbone at all, but that ONE song cracks me up. I never bought the CD, all these years…but it was one of the first songs I DLed. Offer me that same song, DL-able for $.50 or $1 and I’d snap it up. Sure, I could try to find a friend with the CD, so I can borrow and copy it, but why bother if it’s easily DL-able? Does this make any sense? I don’t feel like it. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2001, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/napster-by-subscription-death/53904/12 "2001-02-10T23:06:23Z")
Does anyone know if they will also carry smaller lables? Like real small labels? I might do it if they had a lot of Lookout Records stuff, just because a lot of that is impossible to find any other way, but if they dont have lookout, forget it. ---
**Author:** ![OneDollarWilliam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/fbc32d/32.png) [@OneDollarWilliam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneDollarWilliam)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2001, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/napster-by-subscription-death/53904/13 "2001-02-10T23:13:00Z")
With Napster about to go all “Legal” and stuff; I am here to recomend a partial alternative. Using the same Napster software that you have now plus a pice of additional software called Napigator [http://www.napigator.com](http://www.napigator.com) you can access independent Mp3 Servers of your chosing. It’s totally free although there is an add that bugs you to donate to keep the service going. Also while Napster is still free you can choose which Napster server you use. (This makes coordinationg transfers with friends super easy.) I’ve been using it a lot lately, and I’m not so worried about subscription Napster because of it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![L714](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dec6dc/32.png) [@L714](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/L714)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2001, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/napster-by-subscription-death/53904/14 "2001-02-12T15:51:51Z")
Napster said they should know about 11:30 PST today. It’s sure been interesting. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2001, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/napster-by-subscription-death/53904/15 "2001-02-13T00:16:02Z")
Napster lost. That means that it’s illegal. The big question is, is discussion of Napster now against the Straight Board Rules? After all the court ruled it’s illegal & any topics about illegal things are against the user agreement. It ought to be interesting to see what Chronos has to say.