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Napster Joins DRM-free Bandwagon, Raises Rates

Monday, January 7th, 2008 at 8:05 AM - by

The online music service Napster revealed on Sunday that it plans to offer copy protection-free music downloads by spring. The DRM-free tracks, however, will only be available through music purchases, and Napster's subscription customers will still face music copy protection measures while also seeing a hike in their monthly service fees, according to Forbes.

Napster's CEO Chris Gorog commented "The ubiquity and cross-platform compatibility of MP3s should create a more level playing field for music services and hardware providers and result in greater ease of use and broader adoption of digital music."

The move to offer MP3 files without copy protection means that Napster can potentially grow its customer base to include users with a much wider range of portable media devices -- including Apple's iPod and iPhone. Currently, Napster offers its music in Microsoft's proprietary WMA format with digital rights management copy protection, limiting use to Windows PCs and the much smaller non-iPod media player market.

The company will also raise its basic subscription service rate at the end of January from US$9.95 a month up to $12.95 a month, and plans to continue focusing primarily on its monthly subscription services.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Jan 07, 2008 11:36 am

I wasn't even aware Napster was still around...

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jimothy said:

member since 04 Jun 2004 with 612 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Jan 07, 2008 12:01 pm

This isn't new. Napster offered DRM-free tracks years ago.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Jan 07, 2008 2:36 pm

Well, this is good news. The more sources to legally get DRM-free music, the better for everyone, including Apple.

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