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Posts Tagged “

Napster

greed

RIAA Wants to Cut Artist Royalties to 9%, Apple Wants Them at 4%, Artists Just Want to Eat

The RIAA always claims that its looking out for the livelihood of artists when it sues the hell out of alleged pirates, but in reality it's really fighting to keep record industry executives rich by defending an outdated and unsustainable business model. While before the PR team at least made an attempt to make it seem like artists were priority #1, they seem to have given up: the RIAA is now trying to cut down artist's royalties on digital downloads. More »

review

Samsung SLM A747, First With Napster Service, Reviewed

The Gadget:The A747 is also the first AT&T handset to support the newly launched Napster Mobile service (AT&Ts answer to Verizon's V Cast Music and the Sprint Music Store), allowing over the air downloads of MP3s, ringtones and wallpapers on AT&T's 3G network. You can purchase MP3s one at a time for $1.99 or five at a time for $7.49. Fashioned in the likeness of the ever-influential RAZR, the phone has large backlit keys, a camera that rotates from back to front (for the video share service), and a bright screen. More »

Sonos Launches ZoneBridge Plus Napster and Best Buy Music Stores In a raft of announcements, Sonos today confirmed the existence of the $99 ZoneBridge 100, and launched two more PC-free music-store options on the system, including Napster and Best Buy's new Digital Music Store.

cellphones

AT&T Sells Napster Songs Over the Air For $2 Each

AT&T, which already sells eMusic songs over the air, will now be selling Napster downloads as well, at $1.99 per track or $7.49 for a bundle o' five. With an average cost of $1.50, that's still 50 cents higher than the going online rate of 99 cents, where Sprint now prices its OTA download tracks. (Verizon is still $1.99.) When asked about the cost, AT&T's spokesman called the young target audience "very price insensitive." (Maybe before their parents get that first $150 phone bill.) While Reuters didn't say which phones were compatible with the new Napster service, it did say the iPhone was definitely not one of them. I'm guessing this is for 3G HSDPA handsets only. [Reuters]

home entertainment

Sonos Now Supports Zune, Napster, Yahoo!, AOL, and MTV

Sonos is spending like Web 2.0 Bubble money is going out of style, and announcing they've bought support for almost all the major internet music stores. Along with Zune, there's Napster, Yahoo, AOL and MTV support, which makes streaming pretty simple. More »

portable media

Virgin Kills US Music Subscriptions

Tough luck if you were subscribing to Virgin Digital music, as the company is shelving their US operations and giving users some free Napster content instead. If you're one of the affected, you can grab your free Napster player and three free months of Napster To Go service as a consolation prize. More »

portable media

Napster Serves Up Japan's First Music Subscription Service

As gig 4,632 on its comeback world tour, Napster hit Japan late last night when the company opened the first subscription music download service ever seen by those under-privileged Japanese people. More »

portable media

Napster Gets Less Nappy, More Flashy

This week Napster announced their latest flash player to work with the Napster subscription music service. The player itself seems pretty mediocre, but it has a decent price tag—with a catch, of course. The player only has 1 GB of storage space and supports MP3, WMA, WAV, MPEG-4 and JPEG. It includes a FM radio tuner and rechargeable battery capable 35 hours of playback time. It will retail for $120, but if you sign up for a year of Napster To Go service at a ball-busting $14.95 per month, this player can be yours for only $50. Not too bad, really, and a pretty good deal if you actually want to use Napster To Go. More »

software

Napster Sort Of Kind Of But Not Really Free Again

Napster announced yet another iteration today, allowing users to stream over two million tracks on their ad-supported website and to share links to artists, albums and even specific songs through email or on other websites. Sounds good, but in practice it's not so wonderful. More »

software

Googlester?

It is time for our weekly buyout/merger rumor. Today the New York Post is reporting that Google is looking to align with Napster, possibly buy them completely outright. With Google's recent foray into the downloadable video service it is only a matter of time before they push something in the audio world. Representatives from Google and Napster denied any announcements, but these rumors come from sources within the music industry. Last week a Napster spokeswoman did tell Reuters that they were looking to be bought out. iTunes possibly getting some competition? More »

portable media

XM and Napster Make Interesting Bedfellows

Here's yet more co-branding in the satellite radio/digital audio space with a new beta test of the XM satellite radio and Napster service. Basically, if you're listening to XM Radio Online and hear a song you really like, you can immediately link to Napster to buy and download that said song, if Napster has it available. All in a matter of seconds. And look for upcoming XM/MP3 players (like the Dell DJ Satellite Radio/MP3 Player) DJ, that let subscribers listen to XM radio live when the player is docked in the car or at home. More »


portable media

Napster+XM = XM+Napster

I know the above tautology is self-evident, but Napster and XM are teaming up to bring us ounces of sweet downloadable content from XM and Napster combined. More »