New Napster Off To A Solid Start

Anonymous Superhero writes "From Wired magazine Napster 2.0 has a sleek design and makes exploring new music a pleasure. The most nagging problem? The confusing licensing issues. A review by Katie Dean." I haven't tried it yet - still using the iTunes store.

What, is that out yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

When the Apple Music Store for Windows went live, half the xp users on the internet had downloaded iTunes within 24 hours, it was the most talked-about event on the internet for days, and Apple had almost immediate statistics showing they'd sold millions and millions of songs in the first weekend.

Where are Napster2's such statistics? If they're remaining silent on that, what does that say about how much of a "success" they are so far?

Now that Napster 2.0 is out... I mean, it's out already? The only way I knew was those ads on the Onion. But that made it seem like a "coming soon" thing. Heck, it's barely made a ripple. You'd think if it were worthwhile, it would get more press than the press they merely recieve because of their famous name.

So are all the people complaining that you can't run your iTunes Music Store purchases on more than 3 computers going to overlook the seemingly worse flaws in Napster2, or whine all the louder?

About 6 months too late, unfortunately.

[anaphora]

I, for one, welcome our new kitty-cat-with-headphones overlords. In all seriousness though, I'll stick to kaz^H^H^HiTunes until Napster offers me something that my other service can't. Such is the problem with being second-in-line, everyone uses the first. That's why Windows is popular, that's why AOL is popular, that's why Napster WAS so popular, and that's why 45$/month porn sites are popular.

Doomed project

[Kethinov]

Seriously, Napster and all clones such as Itunes (we can debate who cloned who later) who are trying to sell music online are ultimately doomed to failure. P2P is the new radio; free music, and will always be considered so from here on out. No P2P service will ever be as successful as Kazaa or oldschool Napster until they realize that the lure of their product is its freedom. Pay for it though voluntary subscription (such as slashdot) and/or ads like cable television and be done with it. Music et al will never be as ridiculously profitable as it once was. The days when we pay per album and/or song have rapidly come to a close and I'll be damned if I ever see them come back.

Licenses

[dolo666]

The Napster kinks in licenses and stuff like that are only a sign of how the record industry still hasn't embraced this age of electronic media.

You'd think they'd be all into it, with the cost reduction for distrobution.

I would think I'm not the only person in the world who clicks OK whenever I see a contract or license. To me, that long-winded drivel has no hold on my time. If Napster is saying they will require my first born child as future payment for the services, then they'll have to come through me to get it, contract or not.

But that's not really what this is about. It's about record execs who haven't got the slightest idea how to integrate properly into a culture.

We are the culture... The people.

They (RIAA et al) are too busy trying to tell us that they are the culture, they are in control, when in fact that very notion of them having to tell people of this, is their undoing.

Each artist or group might have certain wishes to deal with Napster. Napster likely had to make concessions to appease the powers that be.

It's a side effect of a greater disorder. But does it make Napster bad? Prolly not.

Re:Different classes of songs hidden until you joi

[back_pages]

This is precisely the complaint I heard from an early adopter. He said that he believed he was paying $10 for the total, complete, awesome, unrestricted unlimited plan only to find out that the music that he DID want to get either cost more, wouldn't stream, or was only a stream (I forget which he preferred, but either way the stuff he wanted was not available in his preferred format.)

So I quote an enthusiastic customer commenting on Napster 2.0's payment scheme, "F### THAT." He called his credit card and issued a charge-back on the service for false advertising.

Hmm. Question:

[Anonymous Coward]

For as long as you shell out the fee, you can download tracks and listen to them either online or offline. Stop paying the fee, and you don't get to keep the downloads. ... Some songs in the Napster library can only be streamed, while others are only available for a 99-cent download, even if you're paying for the streaming service.

If you pay the 99 cents, can you keep that song forever?

What happens if napster's drm servers go down or whatever? Can you still listen to the music you've bought? What are the restrictions, can you move bought songs between computers like with iTMS?

A fair review??

[beefdart]

You think Wired is a big fan of Napster2 because Napster and Roxio are both huge sponsers of the website as well as the mag?

Re:iTunes

[mblase]

As near as I can tell, Napster 2.0 is a store first and a jukebox second. Its jukebox tools are sorely lacking compared to iTunes, and its biggest omission is that it doesn't even include a CD ripper.

iTunes outclasses Napster in almost every way that counts. It would be more fair to compare iTunes to the new and improved MusicMatch [musicmatch.com], which added online music shopping about a month before iTunes for Windows was released, and compare Napster to BuyMusic [buymusic.com] instead.

SELL OUTS!!!

[mustangdavis]

Seriously ....

They are using the identity of what used to represent freedom from the RIAA to make money, and basically, supporting the RIAA!!!

This is a disgrace!

I know that the musicians have a right to make moeny (although I still think it is a crock how the RIAA has blackmailed everyone and even more so how the musicians have basically turned their backs on their fans), but using the Napster name to support the RIAA is NOT RIGHT!!!

Hell, just on the fact that Napster has also sold out to the RIAA would be enough for me to NEVER visit their site. As it is, I am (as I am sure many others are) boycotting music by not purchasing CDs or subscribing to any pay-for music site. The people need to speak out by boycotting this kind of thing.

In addition, (if I was buying CDs) now you have to pay to download music, whether or not you have purchased the CD! (If you want to have the music "legally") That is also a crock!

Don't support the sellous at Napster!

Don't use their service!!!

Don't support the RIAA!!!

Let those music producers go out of business and starve! If you want to support your bands, go to their live shows, but don't allow the RIAA to exploit people with these insane rules on music. Yes, the artists deserve to make a good living, but these kind of costs provide MUCH more than a good living. Force the music execs to take a pay cut ... and have the artists living in semi-luxuray instead of in their plush castles!



It just frosts me that the folks at Napster, the people that are supposed to represent what is good in music, are now selling out to the evil RIAA! I would rather have the name go down (as a marter) than to sell out like this!

And to the people at Napster: Please stop with all of the annoying TV commericals!

Re:Napster 2 vs. iTunes vs. Rhapsody

[DomCurtis187]

there's only one WMA/DRM-compatible portable player -- the Samsung/Napster player. Try to play protected WMAs on any other plain WMA-compatible player and you're SOL.

Re:Rock solid start...

[swordboy]

I wonder why that is? [microsoft.com]

Re:I haven't tried it yet, either

[Quasar1999]

Being a Canadian, I have no choice but to use piracy... there is no legal way to buy music online in Canada...

And HMV marks every CD they have as 'imported', and jacks up the price to $45. I have tried to buy music online from all the major new online music stores... no luck... so I'll continue to pirate (since I'm already paying a piracy tax on all recordable media, I'm legally entitled too... I love stupid politicians...)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Anyone know of a CD-R emulator? That'd work...

[SoyFeo408]

Well, they let you burn to CD, which is an inherently unprotected format. So you *could* burn to CD and turn right around and rip back to an unprotected format like MP3 (not that I would do something so blatantly illegal as this) ;)

BUT -- if I *WERE* to do something so blatantly illegal as that, I would consider it a huge waste of CD blanks. Which brings me to my question:

Most of us are familiar with programs like Daemon Tools that tricks your computer into seeing an ISO image as an extra CD drive. Has ANYONE seen a program/driver that does this process in reverse?
For example, it could be a program that tricks your computer into seeing an extra CD-R drive which is in reality just an ISO file creator. Nero and several other programs provide this kind of functionality, but only from within their application. Since Napster (and iTunes for that matter) only allows you to burn from their program, I figure such a program would have to work at the ATAPI level, not as a separate application.

I've scoured the net and haven't found any such program yet. I would love to code this sort of thing myself, but unfortunately I'm woefully ignorant of the particular Windows functions one would have to interface with to emulate a drive.
I figure there's enough open source gurus that mill around this site that SOMEONE might see this post and take it upon themself to code this sort of tool. Anyone with any thoughts/suggestions/flames can AIM me at SoyFeo408.

Uh, ok.

[ryanw]

a sleek design and makes exploring new music a pleasure.

I guess you could call looking for music in a browser with 8 funky frames a "sleek design". And if you like hunting through lists that are unalphabetized and extremely slow a "pleasure" then, enjoy!

I personally thought it looked horrible and was very unfunctional. The lists aren't in any particular order when you browse by genre. The interface is pretty much a nightmare. It looks like it was put together by a bunch of monkeys on typewriters [wired.com]. I'm glad that Microsoft is so worried about the consumer's having options [microsoft.com] but for some reason it just seems like Microsoft really doesn't care. I know that is hard to believe, but I don't think there are any plans for Napster to be on MacOSX ever. Strange huh?

Re:Anyone know of a CD-R emulator? That'd work...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if there's a similar trick for Windows, but on the Mac, you can convert iTunes music store AAC files to unprotected lossless AIFF files using Roxio's Toast to "burn" them. When you drag the AAC files to it for burning, it has iTunes convert them to raw audio immediately, not when you actually do the burn. So you just pretend you're going to burn it, then copy the temp files it created and cancel the burn. Then have iTunes (or anything else) convert the AIFF files to MP3. Or leave them as AIFF if you have infinite hard drive space.