Digital Trends

Napster

Surprise – Napster’s been legit now for a longer time than it existed on the fringes of the law, and become one of the powerhouse download destinations. You can download individual tracks and entire albums from the service ($0.99 and $9.99, respectively), but what the company’s really pushing is its subscription service, which means you have to be persistent in looking for individual tracks to download – not a good thing. Searching among the firm’s four million tracks isn’t easy either, since its creators keep wanting you to sign up for their lite service and download their player (which then requires the awkward joy of trying to import your music collection).

Granted, you do clearly retain ownership of any track you download versus subscribe to, which can be burnt onto CD or transferred to a portable device. However, you’d better be sure said device plays WMA files (sorry, iPod owners). Cheerfully though, this quarter the company should shift focus to the MP3 format according to an announcement made back in January.

As for subscriptions, there are two levels. Basic service costs $9.99 and lets you download as much music as you want, but songs have to stay on your computer. The “To Go” level ($14.95) allows you to transfer tracks to your music player or cell phone. However, neither option lets you burn tracks to CD. Worse, once your subscription lapses, they’ll no longer play.

How To Get There: www.napster.com
Prices: $0.99/track, $9.99/album, Subscriptions: $9.99 and $14.95.