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I'd gladly spend ten large to fill my iPod. Hell, I just spent fifty G to get my teeth capped with a platinum veneer, and my mink fur sink set me back about twenty K.

the shame, the founder of napster has got to be bowling over in pain.

a good portion of the american public are ignorant TV zombies, believing everything they see....napster knows that

and they know that this shit they shovel will be believed by some....sorry way to sell a product (or use of a product till you stop paying the subscription fee lol)

Ultimately, the problem with Napster's business model is that they're putting the cart before the horse.

Apple does things the right way: they put together the best (and best-selling) player out there, then they require you to use iTunes in order to load it with music. And while you're at it, you can buy music from the iTMS, if you're so inclined.

On the other hand, Napster seems to think that consumers want to buy songs to listen to them... on their computer? on a player that the user doesn't have? WTF?

Let the Lemmings follow Micro$oft lead on this too! They will end at the bottom of the nearest cliff.

Music lovers are not stupid. They will soon find out that the subscription model will break there bank, after all Micro$oft only wants their money.
And for those with fewer brain cells than an amoeba: You could fill your music/mp3 hard drive player with all the subscription based music you want. But guess whats going to happen to it as soon as you stop making those payments?! Poof it's magically useless space fodder!! That music will never be your's unless you purchase it. Where's the advantage of paying monthly installments, just to end up paying again to buy it?

Bling Bling Baby

Well my family has easily spent a couple hundred over the last 2 years.

Brought to you by the magic word MORE, as in we have spent more in the ITMS in the last 2 years, than we have spent in brick and mortar stores in the last decade...

Now I have to find the time to digitize my wife and my vast album collection.

Janus = joke+anus

I believe M$ is trying to copy Apple with their naming schemes, and that the correct spelling is ... jAnus

Napster is circling the (super) bowl

joe

Thank you 'maczac' for showing that, in its ambiguity, poor grammar can yield hilarious results.

Whoah Maczac!

"Now I have to find the time to digitize my wife and my vast album collection."

When you get that wife digitizing thing figured out send me an email okay?

IT's so predictable.. Napster keeps touting their 1999 Brand Power.. which was when they were the leading music theft brand...

Why?

Because that's what Shawn Fanning sold to (Bertelssman?).. The rights to the Brand.

Basically that's ALL that's left of Napster, the logo and name.. so that's why they think it's the only aspect of their company that has ever been successful at anything (and certainly never made any money)...

Kinda funny when you think the most successful part of the company was coined by a few stoners teasing their friend...

This tells me Napster is run by morons!

Isn't it simply amazing to think about the fact that -- just a few years back -- Jobs admitted that Apple had missed the boat with the whole craze about burning of CD's because they were including DVD units on every computer? Instead of CD burners!? So they quickly did an about-face and started including burners. Remember?

And now just a little while later, relatively speaking, here we are and Apple OWNS music on the computer! Talk about a brilliant recovery and quick turnaround.

Amazing.

I still hear people asking all the time if an iPod will only play songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store. I still can't understand how people don't realize that you can also rip your own CD collection as well as play standard .mp3 files on one as well. Apple could stand to educate the ignorant masses a bit when it comes to this.

someone should tell Napster that 10,000 songs doesn't add up to $10,000 -- it adds up to $9,900..either way this guy @ Napster is a big dildo.

Lots of things to think about here regarding Napster vs. iTunes.

1 - Napster isn't run by morons. They're business people taking a chance that they can make a mark in the online download industry. Things haven't gone well, despite all the money they're spending. That happens to every business (can you say "Cube?")

2 - Apple's "about face" going from DVD players to CD burners isn't a good analogy when compared to iPod/iTunes/iTMS. The relationship is nominal. I doubt that most Mac iPod/iTunes/iTMS users burn CDs. "Most" usually refers to more than half.

3 - Napster sounds desperate, both in PR material and licensing, but time will tell. If they have enough time...

4 - Lease/rent vs. own. Jobs is probably right. Most (50% or more) would prefer to own their songs and be able to carry them wherever they want. That being the case, for some (less than 50%) the all-you-can-eat rental model might be a good deal. Still, $15 a month forever...

5 - Competition #1. Napster, Microsoft, Creative, et al., they're all competition for Apple's trio of iPod/iTunes/iTMS so Apple will hold onto the model they have as long as possible. If music rentals catch on (I think a substantial segment will) then Apple can provide that as an option in a minute.

6 - Competition #2. Apple is competition and market leader for Napster, Microsoft, Creative, et al. It will be much more difficult for them to create that same trio-- Portable Music Player/PC Music Player/Online Music Store-- to work in harmony the way Apple's trio does already.

The future looks good for Apple but somewhere, at some time, Apple's music market share will trickle downward. It must. Even Microsoft's "monopoly" is losing steam and grip as Apple and Linux add to Redmond's woes.

What'll be interesting is to see if Apple can learn from Microsoft's mistakes and continue to provide value and experience that beats the competition.

Tera Patricks
Mac360.com

If you shop smartly on iTunes, you buy albums with 20 or more tracks -- so tracks in that case cost less than 50 cents each.

And you download every free song they offer.

All this brings the average cost per song down.

What is really funny about their ad is that it will run, saying you have to pay $10000 to fill up your iPod, THEN, the Pepsi promo will run, saying get music for FREE! Apple gets a great response to s stupid ad without even trying!

"Now I have to find the time to digitize my wife"

Maczac,
Not a good idea; if you get into an argument, she'll hit you with the comment that your hard drive is too small, and it wasn't all that hard to begin with. Not to mention the dangers of hackers accessing her without your knowledge and infecting her with some nasty virus. Or imagine having to navigate a bunch of pop-up windows just to make out with her. On the plus side, you could save yourself mucho dinero and download new clothes for her from BitTorrent.

Tera, you forget 1 important point. - Napster, Microsoft, Creative, et al. will all be competing for the same group of people (even if it is as high as 50%), leaving the other 50% or so for Apple with their current model. No need to change it, they will be the only one's doing it. Apple is in a fantastic position.

I have 10,384 songs on my iPod. Most of them came from Napster back when... ah only kidding RIAA.

"2 - Apple's "about face" going from DVD players to CD burners isn't a good analogy when compared to iPod/iTunes/iTMS. The relationship is nominal. I doubt that most Mac iPod/iTunes/iTMS users burn CDs. "Most" usually refers to more than half."

Tera, you're reading too much into my post. It was merely an observation about a company that didn't even seem to be THINKING about music on the computer / in digital form, and then went and became the DOMINANT player in the field. All in a tremendously short time.

I still think it's an amazing capitalization on what was initially a gaffe. The fact that it happened in so short a time span is what makes it all the more impressive.

And with the MUSIC part of the equation locked-up, Apple can now turn to movies (remember iFlix, anyone? Also iFlicks? I'll bet Apple owns them as we speak) -- and unlike before they'll be doing the whole MOVIE thing at just the right time.

A Janus player has to call home every so often to refresh the time stamp on the music and to report back exactly what music has been played.

I understand that Napster distribute a fixed proportion of their income to the artists and labels. The proportion of that money that each of them receive is proportional to how many times their music has been played.

That's not to say that the artist gets say ¢3 per play, but instead, if their song accounts for 0.1% of all plays, they get 0.1% of the money that's shared between artists.

The important issue is just what proportion of the money Napster keep for themselves. Apple retain about 20% and out of that they cover their costs and make a very tiny profit.

Apple have been fairly open about the proportion of money going to the music makers, are Napster saying anything ?

Viridian,
very funny!

People's tastes and preferences are constantly changing. We are currently in a era where disposable items seem to be the popular choice. The majority seem to shy away from long-term commitment whether it's towards a car or towards a spouse. The life span of a product seems to be getting shorter and shorter and rarely does a consumer expect to keep a product for the rest of their life, even if it has a lifetime guarantee.

It also seems that tasts in music are changing at an increasingly rapid pace. Many artists need to constantly reinvent themselves if they want to stay popular. It is very possible that more and more people may prefer to spend a small fee each month just to stay current with whatever's popular. If they gave a significant discount for subscribers when purchasing a song, it could actually be a viable alternative. If only 25% of people prefer this method, then I think it's great that they have an option out there that gives them what they need, even if I have no intention of using it.

We'll have to see how this plays out. I couldn't care less if Napster completely fails, but I am not against different options and competition. As long as the competition doesn't affect me, I don't care if they go bankrupt or make millions of dollars. If they manage to make a handful of people happy, then good for them.

I can see the Analysts this summer declaring Napster the winner.

1 millions songs rented on a monthly basis. If Napster has 250 subscribers, the analysts can claim that Napster rented 250 million songs in one month. So in two months Napster rented 500 million songs. Napster reached the 500 millionth rental in only 2 months while it took years for Apple to reach that number. Napster beat Apple. Apple lost again.


But the analysts will ignore the fact that Napster's GROSS revenue is only $15 x 250 = $3750 per month and is losing millions of dollars a day. And they ignore the fact that Apple does not rent music.

Meanwhile...

Apple is still in the black.

Apple is making more money selling iPods

And Apple is still selling songs on iTMS.

king_alvarez.

Very intelligent post. You must not frequent here much.

All Napster has to do is show their alien logo and that alone will turn most people off. That logo appeals to teens who watch sci-fi movies all the time, and indirectly sends a message that such people are Napster's target crowd.

Napster will be dead in 6 months.

I agree with king_alvarez, I can see where a subscription service would be useful.

Where I chuckle is Napster using the ten-thousand song cost in advertising. Most of us would say, "Well, I don't have 10,000 songs."

I wouldn't do it that way. I'd advertise it as the celestial jukebox. $14.95 a month. Listen to all your favorite music. New music comes along? Same price. Be up on all the latest hits. Be your own radio station--no annoying DJs and commercials. Just your favorite music, run by you. In the mood for something different? Just download more. Same price.

The commercial plays something like this:

Person going to a club. Goes to Napster--viewers see person downloading 100 top club mixes. Meets attractive member of the opposite sex. Talks about the songs being played at the club. Invites attractive member of the opposite sex over for dinner. Next day, goes to Napster--viewers see person downloading 100 top love songs. Appropriate romantic music playing on the stereo when attractive member of the opposite sex shows up.

"Napster: YOUR favorite music. When YOU want it. $14.95 per month."

Actually, I just thought up an alternate ad that made me smile.

Attractive woman meets handsome guy at his house for a blind date. He says, "I'll be right back" and runs upstairs. She looks around the apartment--beautifully decorated. Approving look on her face. She looks at his bookshelf--great books. Another nod of approval. She looks at his DVD collection--appropriate number of chick-flicks. Another nod of approval. She looks at his CD collection. It's all crappy music. She makes an appropriate disgusted face. From upstairs, she hears him call, "I'll be right down!" She yells back, as she quickly collects her things, "OH! Something just came up! I gotta go! I'll call you!" and races out.

Napster: Because sometimes you don't want to own your favorite music.

All this playing around with different ways to look at the numbers reminds me of this quote:

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
[Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881), British statesman, author. Quoted by Mark Twain in his Autobiography, ch. 29, Mark Twain (1924)]

Thanks to the old Napster, everyone already has enough songs to fill an iPod.

Let Napster invest millions of dollars in the subscription service...
If it looks profitable or useful in anyway, Apple can incorporate it into iTunes within a day or two with an updated iTMS and maintain their market lead and save themselves the hassle of market research because the ex-con Napster has done the footwork for them!!!

re: king_alvarez...

"People's tastes and preferences are constantly changing. We are currently in a era where disposable items seem to be the popular choice. The majority seem to shy away from long-term commitment whether it's towards a car or towards a spouse. The life span of a product seems to be getting shorter and shorter and rarely does a consumer expect to keep a product for the rest of their life, even if it has a lifetime guarantee.

It also seems that tasts in music are changing at an increasingly rapid pace. Many artists need to constantly reinvent themselves if they want to stay popular. It is very possible that more and more people may prefer to spend a small fee each month just to stay current with whatever's popular. If they gave a significant discount for subscribers when purchasing a song, it could actually be a viable alternative. If only 25% of people prefer this method, then I think it's great that they have an option out there that gives them what they need, even if I have no intention of using it.

We'll have to see how this plays out. I couldn't care less if Napster completely fails, but I am not against different options and competition. As long as the competition doesn't affect me, I don't care if they go bankrupt or make millions of dollars. If they manage to make a handful of people happy, then good for them."

====

AND THE FACT THAT AS SOON AS YOU CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION YOUR 10,000 SONG MUCI LIBRARY VANISHES IN A PUFF OF SMOKE!

What Napster does NOT realise is the fact that people over a certain age like to keep/own things.

The reason for this is because personal items are 'aid memoirs' to memories and important events in peoples life.

Like for example - I saw my sons 1st ever sports day and everytime I hear U2's 'beautiful day' it makes me remember how special that day was for oyr family.

Music is one of the most personal things you can own because EVERY song wriiten and recorded means somrthing to someone somewhere in the world, whether it be triggering off memories of a failed relationship, birth of a child, cure of an illness etc.

The point im trying to make is that music IS NOT as disposable as you think. We may be living in a fast and valueless society - but at the end of the day people need their memories as it makes them who they are.

Owning music is about owning your own identity.

Okay, so answer me this...

1: How much time will it take to select those 10,000 songs each month? Oh wait, you'll probably just have the same 10,000 songs all the time. It would be a nightmare to find 10,000 songs multiple times to have the "variety" they promise.

2: How long will it take to upload those 10,000 on the USB players that most people have/will end up with?

What a joke. This is the results of the limited imaginations of those poor, simple saps at Napster.

followed Napster's advice: do the math.

There are approximately 50 new songs touched me every year. Get them from iTMS for $50 and I can have them for a life time. Buy from Napster, that will be $180 and only last for a year.

Many songs I never get tired of listening to them, while few movies I watch them over and over. May rent movies, but won't rent songs.

its sad to imagine the board of Napster staying in all night in the conference room trying to come up with a way to sink iTunes. But Im also equally sure that this ploy will work the same way it did in the Simpsons episode when Malibu Stacy got a new hat.

I dunno. I think the real threat to itunes is if the hackers ever figure out how to bypass the protection from Napster. I mean, for $15 you download 10,000 songs, then run some script you find on usenet and they are all yours.

In fact, i think napster is gonna have a challenge on their hand, cause what 15 year old with a pc out there isnt going to be trying to pull this off?

Its interesting hearing people defend itunes as "owning" music. It seems like just months ago that the fuss was that with itunes you didnt get a physical cd, so it wasnt the same as "owning" the album.

I dont really care what technology wins, so long as it is a technology that forces the music industry to stop cramming pasturized processed music food down our gullets. </dreaming>

-a

Cross post from another Napster article

Napster cost $15 a month only if you want to load it on a portable device. For $10 you can download, or stream, whatever you want on your home PC. For $0 a month you can listen to samples and buy 99 cent downloads just as with iTunes. So they are offering the same service as iTunes, plus additional functions for people that like to listen to more music. What is wrong with that? Why can't iTunes offer a similar service for those of us that want it?. If you are happy listening to clips, then free Napster is the same deal as iTunes. That Napster subscription is good for 3 machines so you could split it with 2 friends; $3.33 each for unlimited listening.

It is similar to XM radio except you get to choose the artist. I have no interest in buying a download; if I like the band, I will go to Amazon or ebay and buy a used CD. That's just what works for me. It saves a lot of money on CDs I listen to once and lets me broaden my horizons. Don't want to be listening to Crosby Stills ans Nash in the old folks home

"How much time will it take to select those 10,000 songs each month? Oh wait, you'll probably just have the same 10,000 songs all the time. [...] How long will it take to upload those 10,000 on the USB players that most people have/will end up with?"

It's actually kind of a fun question. Let's play with some numbers.

First, let's say you download 10,000 songs. Why not? It costs you $9900 at iTMS. Keep in mind that, at $14.95 per month, it will be cheaper for 55 years!. ($9900 / 14.95 per month = 662 months) Personally, I doubt I'll live for 55 more years. You could also wonder if Napster will be around in 55 years.

But how long would it take to download 10,000 songs? Well, let's throw some numbers around.

I grabbed <objects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=557006&selectedItemId=556970">a four minute song</A>--we'll take that as an average--that I had bought from iTMS. It's 3.7MB. Let's say I can do 500 KB per second. So it would take me 7.4 seconds to download the song, but with overhead and the varying speeds of the internet, we'll make it 8 seconds per song. 80,000 seconds is 1333 minutes and 20 seconds, or 22 hours, 13 minutes, and 20 seconds.

So figure it would take you full day to download 10,000 songs. As an aside, if someone wants to download a four minute song and give a more accurate timing, go for it.

Now, to transfer to your music player. We'll rashly assume you're using USB 2.0 to do it, just for grins. The best disk transfer speed I can find for USB 2.0 was 18 MB per second, so we'll use that (needless to say, if it used Firewire it would be faster--about twice as fast). We're transferring 37 GB, so that would be 2056 seconds or about 34 minutes.

Just for laughs, if you have USB 1.1, the transfer rate is 900 KB per second. So transfer 37 GB would take 41111 seconds, or 11 hours.

Now these are just out-of-my-ass numbers and YMMV. Still, it's kind of entertaining to see. Figure that it would take a full day to get all 10,000 songs.

I doubt anyone is still reading this feedback thread, but I had to post this somewhere. Was that Napster ad pathetic or what? I'm pretty sure it was only 15 seconds long. At the Super Bowl party I attended, we all nearly missed it.

I don't think there was even any music! (Shows how memorable the ad was that I'm not sure, huh?) All I remember is some bare-chested retards in a football stadium with the letters in "Napster" spelled out on their chests.

What a sad, pathetic joke.

Good read:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/04/napster_go_away/

I don't know about anyone else but there are elements of the subscription system that appeal to me, but what i would like to be able to do is to download stuff on trial for a week or so then have the option to buy at the end. You might imagine being recommended a CD, you could download it and listen to it for a set number of times before having to pay for it at which point you keep it for ever. I would be interested in this, because I both like to own my music but try new music out.

So it seems to me that a hybrid system is ideal, BUT I think that the reason Apple doesn't do this for the reason suggested above - what if someone cracks the DRM? At least with Apple's scheme people still have to pay before getting the music so if someone cracks the DRM it isn't hugely important - people rip CDs and put the tracks online already. But if someone's paid $15 to download 100s of CDs of music then strips the DRM then the music companies are seriously out of pocket.

Its really entertaining to listen to all of you stroke each other. Can we look at it a different way? Let's say you are a typical college/high school student. You have a few options on a very limited budget. You can 1) buy 2 CDs at the local used CD store for about $20. 2) download 2 full CDs from iTMS for $20 3) Sign up for a subscription service for $15/month to get UNLIMITED popular CDs and songs 4) continue to illegally share MP3s via P2P.

Which are you going to do? I don't think owning the music forever is much of an issue for some people. Music is trendy. It comes and goes. Many people ride those trend waves.

As far as figuring out how much time it takes to download 10,000 songs... Many, many people DO have this many songs, and probably obtained them from P2P networks. So, downloading 10,000 songs IS doable over time.

I agree that one issue with this Napster service is how long will it take before someone cracks the system, and how many people will have easy access to it. Though, people have cracked DVD encryption, and DVDs have survived.