Napster - In Bed with the Devil?

[Marc Peters]

After the initial repulsion of re-installing Media Player on my box, I'm actually quite impressed with the all new, all singing, LEGAL Napster.

The user interface is exactly how you'd expect it to be (and inkeeping with the colourful rounded frontends now synomonous with Windows XP applications).

Roxio (Napster's masters) have been a tad cheeky in the installation wizard - the default setting is to become a subscriber, with repeat billing of £9.95 per month after the initial 7 day "trial". Although this does offer unlimited dowloads to upto 3 PCs and no-time limit streaming, the casual user won't gain the benefit. Additionally, you can only play the downloaded songs for as long as your are a subcriber. Cancel your subscription and you can't listen to the music any more. However, if you're gonna download more than 10 songs per month, it's cost effective.

If you skip this and become a light member, you can download individual tracks for just over a quid (buying tracks as part of the subsciber service is cheaper). Not bad when you consider that there's normally a few turkeys and quite a few fillers on the average album. This way, you get to download only the tracks you want and therefore save that all important money. And don't worry, even if you're not on a subscription you can still preview 30 seconds of every song as a lo-fi stream.

However, you're limited to "sharing" the downloaded songs with 3 PCs - and you have to download them to each PC seperately rather than transferring from one to another if you're not signed up for the premium service. As you can only download a song three times, you'd better hope your HDD doesn't fail .

The napster interface also provides a catalogue, media player functionality, burning and portable device transfer. It probably won't replace your existing player, but it does the job. You can also easily search for artists or albums, or browse by genre. Napster have also thought to include (localized) charts and a recently added tab.

All in all, I'm happy to pay to download music. However, it's not clear when you sign up exactly what you can and can't do with the downloaded songs. For example what happens if you fomat your drive. I may splash out on a subscription if I use it enough. For the time being, I'll be listening to internet radio (Digitally Imported and the like), but I doubt I'll ever buy a CD ever again...

[Marc Peters]

The more I use this, the less excited I become. Windows Media Audio, can only transfer to 3 PCs (and have to download each time), can't burn to CD unless u buy on premium. The list goes on...

Think I'll stick to CDs after all! Now if the tracks were 50p, you could transfer them to and from devices and basicly the copy protection was a little less anal, I'd subscribe.

As I say, I'll stick with CDs for now...

[Gwenny The Vegie]

I use iTunes rather than napster, i havent tried to new napster out. As for downloading stuff? If I download a song, its because i want to listen to it a couple times before i purchase it online or go to the record store and buy it.

and usually i just go with what is more conveniant. if i want the songs righ there, ill buy them from itunes. if i want the Cd and i want to support the band, ill go with the CD. its all good in da hood! i carry my ipod with me everywhere i go, literally, so im not missing out on being able to play my CDs for people or anything... i got a headphone jack hooked into my car so i could play it through my stereo system without tape adapter quality and such.

thats my two cents! Cheers! (that was so american) :lol: