As many of you are aware, Napster, the name that launched a thousand lawsuits, targeted an advertised-laden attack at Apple’s ultra-successful iTunes music service.
Napster’s idea is to question the amount of money consumers have to spend in order to fill up an iPod using iTunes while demonstrating their new music service, Napster To Go. NTG allows members to “rent” as many songs as their mp3 player can carry for only $15 a month.
Rent To Own Download Service?
While Napster’s service isn’t called renting, the process is much the same. An article by Vern Seward in MacNewsWorld demonstrates the difference between iTunes’ song purchasing and Napster To Go’s downloading service.
Of course, they don’t tell you, unless you do some digging, that you never actually own anything with their subscription service, even if the music is on your Napster To Go compatible music player. If you want to own the music, so that you can play it anywhere you want, you have to pay the additional cost for the song or album.
Similar to Radio
So, in essence, subscribing to Napster is akin to subscribing to one of the satellite music services, like XM or Sirius, except that you pick what you listen to instead of getting spontaneous programming. Some might see that spending an extra $5 a month (the difference between a service like XM and Napster) is worth it; it is for sure that subscription services have their fans. But is it “stupid” to not want to subscribe?
With this in mind, the question becomes: Would you rather pay a dollar to own the song or 15 bucks a month to use it?
Do The Math
It is important to understand the difference between iTunes and Napster To Go. In fact, an article in the Northwest Herald Online questions the source of Napster’s attack, their “Do The Math” advertising campaign. Raising similar issues as Seward’s article, the Northwest Herald raises questions about Napster’s arithmetic abilities.
For $15 a month, Napster To Go offers unlimited song downloads in a copy-restricted format that can be played on computers with Microsoft Corp.’s Windows XP operating system and some digital music players.
But these songs expire if you do not keep paying that fee each month.
In its “Do the math” ads, Napster asks customers to focus on the front end of this deal.
If you would like to use Napster as a song purchase site, you can use Napster Lite, which charges an iTunes-like $.99 a song (much like Seward’s article, this took some digging to find as well. It seems they don’t promote Napster Lite at all).
In light of the facts, perhaps NTG isn’t as money saving as it sounds if you want to actually OWN the song. If you only want the rights to use song, then $15 a month for unlimited downloads is quite appealing.
Keep in mind, that if you actually do want to purchase any of the songs you “borrow” from Napster, you certainly can do so.
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest search news.
