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All posts tagged "Napster"


Monday, September 15, 2008

Napster to be Part of Best Buy Family

Posted by Chris Gohlke in "Digital Home News" @ 07:00 PM

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122...hoo_hs&ru=yahoo

"Best Buy Inc. has agreed to buy Napster Inc. for $121 million, a deal that the consumer-electronics giant said it will use to reach new customers. The deal, which includes $67 million of cash and short-term investments on Napster's books, values the provider of digital music at $2.65 a share, nearly double Friday's closing price of $1.36. The acquisition, which is set to close in the fourth quarter, includes Napster's 700,000 digital entertainment subscribers, Web-based customer-service platform and mobile capabilities. "Best Buy intends to use Napster's capabilities and digital subscriber base to reach new customers with an enhanced experience for exploring and selecting music and other digital entertainment products over an increasing array of devices," said Best Buy President and Chief Operating Officer Brian Dunn."

Poor Napster. First the the man shuts you down for illegal activities. Then you reinvent yourself as a legal, albeit less popular alternative. Now you've resorted to selling out to Best Buy. I'm sorry!

Tags: MP3, Napster, Best Buy

Sunday, August 17, 2008

The Online Music Ripoff

Posted by Adam Krebs in "Digital Home Talk" @ 02:00 AM

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/218...poff/page1.html

"Why is DRM so contentious? Surely it's designed to protect the rights of artists and record companies in a climate where, as one international music industry body claims, illegal downloads swamp legitimate music store downloads by a ratio of 20 to 1? The problem is DRM doesn't affect the pirates, who upload and download DRM-free files often ripped directly from CD. Instead, it affects legitimate buyers in a range of deeply irritating ways. The first roadblock comes down to Gates' talk of "simplicity" and "interoperability", or rather the lack of both"

I think most people who know anything about DRM hate it. They hate dealing with the limitations of the technology, both intentionally built-in or as a direct result of poor technical planning/implementation. Unlike a good protection scheme which is invisible to the end user, DRM is too limiting to the average customer, and does nothing to stop hardcore music pirates. Plus, when a store goes down and its licenses stop renewing, the customer is the real loser. Sure you can burn your songs to a CD and re-rip them (or do it virtually), but the process is time-consuming and you lose audio fidelity. Another option is to free your purchased music using tools like FairUse4WM (above) or Hymn, or just buy DRM-free in the first place. Check out the article if you need yet another reason to hate DRM.


Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Bumpy Start for Napster MP3 Store

Posted by Chris Gohlke in "Digital Home News" @ 12:00 AM

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/pos...f-the-gate.html

"Outside of the above-listed annoyances, Napster MP3 worked as expected, and the music sounded clear to my untrained ears. The DRM-free selection (no matter how difficult it is to get to) is indeed very wide—even if we're misled into thinking it's even wider than it actually is. Napster claims that it has the largest major-label MP3 catalog in addition to the largest library of independent music, so those who are committed to never buying a DRMed track ever again may indeed find Napster's offering compelling. From our perspective, though, Amazon MP3 offers a better shopping and downloading experience than Napster currently does. Napster will likely need to tweak its system to make it more user-friendly if it wants to appeal to a mass audience."



Hopefully Amazon will be able to expand their catalog to compete. I think Amazon has a few things going for it. First off, they have a ton of customers that already have accounts with them and trust Amazon. This will be important in getting mainstream users purchasing digital tracks. Second, for their current customers, they have a ton of purchasing data which should help them make better recommendations. Finally, since they have lots of other lines of business, there is a lot of room for synergy. Buy an MP3 player from them, get 10 downloads or buy the physical CD, get discounted, or free immediate downloads.

Tags: MP3, Napster

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