Napster Flubs Major DRM-free Shot at iTunes

[admin]

Napster is serving notice on iTunes... sort of. The music-pirate-turned-legal company has switched gears from being exclusively a legal subscription service to also including a "fully-stocked" music download store. The catch? All Napster's music is DRM-free and still priced at around $0.99/track or $9.99/album. It will also be compatible with Apple's popular iPods as well as all other MP3 players on the market. They feature 6 million tracks according to their marketing. The only question remains: how did they convince the big four labels to ditch DRM on all their music? Or is this all some sort of marketing stunt?

Discuss "Napster Flubs Major DRM-free Shot at iTunes" here. Read the article.

 

[Biggiesized]

The catch isn't that the music is DRM free, but that the music labels don't want to play along. Sort of an awkward sentence there... (pardon my fragment)

 

[jeffsg4mac]

All I want to know is why oh why were you trying to download Brittney Spears music Clint?

 

[Audioholics]

You spelled her name wrong. OH MY GOODNESS I CAN'T BELIEVE I JUST SAID THAT!

 

[efzauner]

Not in canada eh!

Well napster.ca is still drm... canucks get screwed again. Typing in Napster.com redirects me to a collector site!!

They still just dont get it!! I would love to download legal music and pay give them lots of my money! They don't seem to want it!

 

[jeffsg4mac]

You spelled her name wrong. OH MY GOODNESS I CAN'T BELIEVE I JUST SAID THAT!

LOL ahh haa now we know the turth

 

[allargon]

So, Napster is trying to catch up with Emusic *and* Itunes. Fortunately for Emusic (Itunes is too tightly integrated with the Ipod to feel threatened anytime soon), Napster doesn't have its act together.