OK, I’ve seen the Napster commercial, and went to the website, but I’m not real hip on the current music scene (I still listen to albums).
However, if I can get all the tunes I want for $10/mo, that sounds good (like too good to be true??).
But it says I can fill up my MP3 player. I don’t have an MP3 player. I do have a couple of big-ass hard drives and my computer is hooked to my stereo.
So can I download tunes and listen to them off a PC to a stereo? It says “fill my MP3 player every month”. Do I get to keep the songs, or clear them out, or what happens. Seems like I could download a shitload more than $10 worth of songs in a month, so there must be something I don’t get.
From the website: “Get access to over 1,000,000 tracks on your PC. Listen to and download all the music you want for only $9.95 a month. Napster gives you the best ways to enjoy, discover and share music.”
So it sounds like you could get all the songs you can store, for $10/mo. How does this work? I mean, that SOUNDS like a screaming deal, but for some reason, I just can’t believe it really works like that.
Well, all i know about Napster i learned from this message board, specifically here and here.
From what i can tell, the whole “unlimited songs for $10 a month” thing is actually something like a rental service. As long as you fork over your 10 bucks, you can listen to as many songs as you want, but once you discontinue the service your access to all those songs dissappears. They do not remain on your computer after you cancel your membership.
If you actually want to keep the songs permanently in mp3 form, you have to pay a fee per song, which i believe is $1.
the 10/mo. deal only works when “filling up” certain MP3 players. The tracks are copy protected and expire when you stop paying the monthly service fee. They have made it more difficult to create illegal copies.
You could have access to the tracks from your PC (streaming, I think) but AFAIK you cannot download them to your hard drive. If you want to do this, the Napster service operates much like iTunes, and you pay by the song.
If you are not interested in the current music scene, you might have much better luck at eMusic.com. They do not have major label music, but lots of great choices otherwise. Songs cost about a quarter of what the others charge - 16 bucks for 65 downloads. Once you download the song, you own it.
Thanks for the search, mhendo. The hamsters and me ain’t seeing eye to eye (although I did get the first link to open right up!).
That’s about what I figured, although I didn’t know about the implementation. And sounds like Snake Legs had pretty much the same level of understanding I did, and I would have suffered as he did (if I ever even got that far).
Sure appreciate the dope on that dope. I don’t think that sounds like what I’m after (although $1/song to keep might work out, I know lots of albums I only like a couple of songs from).
For $10ish a month you can download and listen to any music on up to 4 PCs. You cannot burn the music to CD or transfer it to a player.
For $14ish a month, you get the above AND the ability to transfer any music to an MP3 player with Napster-to-GO capability. This is actually Microsoft Media Player Subscription support and it is part of Windows XP and MediaPlayer 10.
For the price of a CD each month, you get access to over a million songs. It is kind of like having an unlimited Blockbuster rental account.
Finally, you can buy music from Napster for $1 a song like iTunes as well.
I think Napster rocks because I prefer the rental option; I listen to music I might never buy (like comedy) and I can always buy something I want to keep.
I think Napster is a pretty nice deal too. I have the 10.00 a month subscription and have it on 3 computers. My kids listen to it quite often and I have attached one of the laptops to my stereo. For the most part I run it through the computer and Klipsch speakers. It sounds very good. I don’t buy much music because we can listen to it here at home anytime we want. The To-Go option only works on certain players at this time. The bitrate depends on your connection speed. For DSL the bitrate is 128 kbps.
Here’s a thread I started about Napster to go as well. Also, if you’re curious, go to boingboing.net and do a search on Napster. They’ve got an interesting article there.
Speaking of music sites, has anyone seen the Russian (or in the case of the one I use, Ukranian) music sites? I am not 100% on their legality, but from what I read, there have been no legal pursuits successfully launched against them, and they look professional so I have to assume they are okay (I won’t link just in case though).
Basically they offer 650 meg of download for $10US. The music is in standard mp3 format and while most of the music is from east Europe, there is also a huge repository of US/British musicians as well.