Napster

Many people remember Napster as the company at the center of a controversial court case in which the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) sued the file sharing service for copyright violation. The RIAA won, and Napster  was shut down, but it has since been re-born as a commercial service that has the full blessing of the music industry.

In its current incarnation, Napster  is a music subscription service that allows users to download an unlimited number of songs for a set monthly fee. 

 There are currently (May 2006) three Napster services: Napster light (a simple online music store that sells tracks for 79p each), Napster and Napster To Go.

Napster

The regular Napster  service is available at £9.95 per month. For this price, users can listen to (almost) the complete Napster lineup of more than 1 million songs. Music can be downloaded or streamed from a choice of over 50 commercial-free radio stations. You can also create your own custom radio stations that play music from specified artists or genres.

Sounds great! Is there a catch? 

Well, yes, there is a substantial catch. All of the music that you download from Napster is only accessible as long as you are a paid member. Let your membership lapse and that music is gone, finished, kaput. The reality of Napster is that it is a service which rents music rather than sells it.

Of course, part of Napster  is a music store where you can buy songs for as low as 68p each. Purchased songs can be burnt to CD or transferred to a portable MP3 player. That may seem like a good deal compared to the £12.99 or so for a commercial CD, but remember, Napster songs are in WMA format – compressed audio files that do not have the same sonic quality as CDs.   

On the plus side – for £9.95 you get to check out a tremendous amount of music – bands and genres that you might not otherwise be exposed to. You can read reviews by other Napster users and browse Billboard charts from the past 50 years.

Napster To Go

If you have a portable MP3 player (and who doesn't?) you can subscribe to Napster To Go for £14.95 a month for the privilege of transferring an unlimited number of songs to your portable device. Same catch, though, as with the regular Napster service – as soon as you stop paying your monthly fee all that music is inaccessible.

Napster To Go includes all the features of the regular Napster service, so you can download songs to your computer or your MP3 player and listen to streaming audio. 

There is a good selection of MP3 players that is supported by Napster  To Go including popular models from Creative, Dell, iriver and Rio.

How about the iPod? Sorry – iPod owners are stuck with Apple's iTunes Music Store, and purchasing each song individually.

Some of the songs in Napster's catalog are only available for purchase, and some major names such as the Beatles and Led Zeppelin are not available at all. For those interested in exploring new music, however, Napster  offers good service.