That insane price includes about $67 million of cash and investments, making the deal actually worth about $54 million, but that's still a lot of money. You've got to wonder what sorts of plans Best Buy has for the beleaguered music store, what with other online options such as iTunes and Amazon doing so much better. But I guess they're trying to make up for the steep drop-off in CD purchases in their stores over the last few years, which has got to have hurt their bottom line. Will they make serious changes to Napster to try to make it relevant again? We'll see. [Reuters]

Napster Launches World's Largest MP3 Store Featuring 6 Million Tracks

Songs Purchased at Napster Now Compatible With iPod and iPhone
LOS ANGELES —(Business Wire)— May. 20, 2008 Napster (Nasdaq:NAPS), the pioneer of digital music, today announced the launch of the world's largest and most comprehensive MP3 store at http://www.napster.com/store.

Napster's download store is more than 50% larger than any other MP3 store and boasts not only the largest major label MP3 catalog in the industry, but also the largest library of independent music available anywhere. All Napster download sales in the U.S. will now be in the user-friendly, DRM-free MP3 format, which is compatible with virtually any MP3 player or music phone including the iPod and the iPhone. Napster is the first music subscription service featuring major label content to offer 100% of its catalog in the MP3 format for download sales.

"Music fans have spoken and it's clear they need the convenience, ease of use and broad interoperability of the DRM-free MP3 format, and they want to be able to find both major label artists and independent music all in one place. Napster is delighted to deliver all of this and more with the world's largest MP3 catalog," said Napster's Chairman and CEO Chris Gorog. "Our new MP3 store, together with our award-winning 'all you can eat' music subscription service, provides the most comprehensive and exciting music experience available. Virtually any portable device in the world can now be used to enjoy tracks purchased at Napster, which is an important breakthrough for our company."

Pricing for download sales will remain at 99 cents for single MP3 tracks and $9.95 for most MP3 albums, Napster confirmed. The vast majority of the MP3 catalog, including all major label content, is available at a high-quality 256kbps bitrate, and downloaded tracks include high-resolution album art. Consumers can visit and browse the download store with no obligation or commitment, and can also choose to subscribe to Napster's on-demand streaming service, which is web-based and can be accessed from any Internet-connected computer without downloading software.

"Our goal is to enrich your life with music, in ways that are personalized to you," said Chief Operating Officer Christopher Allen. "Napster now offers a truly complete and synergistic digital music destination, where music lovers can not only discover and listen to music, but also buy and own everything they want in MP3 format, which works on any music player. The combination offers consumers the best of both worlds."

Napster gives music fans the freedom of choice to discover, experience, and buy music on their own terms. With its web-based, open, innovative products and services, Napster gives consumers the ability to enjoy music across their desktop, living room, portable music player, and mobile phone.

"Developing online music services into true go-to consumer music destinations depends in large part on reducing hurdles to adoption," said Susan Kevorkian, IDC's Consumer Markets program director, "By offering millions of high quality, MP3-encoded DRM-free tracks from all of the major labels as well as independents, this service is well-positioned to appeal to the broad spectrum of music lovers, including iPod and iPhone owners."

Yes, the RIAA doesn't think the record companies are making enough and that musicians are clearly making too much. I mean, they get 13% now. Like they deserve 13% for writing and creating the music that people are paying for. Hogwash! Someone had to, you know, encode it. That's worth at least 40%. And hey, these shoes don't shine themselves! So they're pushing to get that rate cut down to a shameful 9%, giving artists even less of a slice of the pie than before.

Of course, Apple, Napster and other large online retailers make the RIAA look like a charity in comparison, with Apple pushing to cut the royalty rate down to an insulting 4%. Yes, Apple wants artists to get a 4% of wholesale royalty rate. Really looking out for those artists, aren't you Steve?

If there was ever a time for a band to try going completely independent, this is it. Why give over 90% of your income away to greedy sleazebags when you can sell your music online without the middleman? This industry needs to be burned to the ground and built back up again; it's broken and it seems less and less likely that it'll be able to be fixed. [Hollywood Reporter via Slashdot]

Price: $149.99 after $50 rebate and two-year contract.

The Performance: The phone is solid..as far as non-smartphones go. The keys are well defined and the interface is well organized and responsive, but the screen is a little low-res for my tastes. As for the Napster service, I found the UI to be well organized and the downloads quick. On average, it took each track about 10 seconds to download. You can also have Napster email a link to your inbox so you can have the track on your computer as well. However, the service is limited by the size of the screen and the lack of a full keyboard. Unlike a device like the iPhone, which has plenty of screen space (not to mention resolution), Napster on the SLM takes a few extra screens to find what you want. Hacking out artist and song titles on the keyboard can also be a bit laborious. But for what it is, it worked well.

The Verdict: The phone itself is nothing to flip out about, boasting a solid, but unspectacular set of features (Bluetooth 2.0, microSD, etc...). The Napster service is also nice, proving to be a worthy competitor to similar offerings from Sprint and Verizon. At $150, it's a good buy if you want a simple phone that can download and play a couple of MP3s. It arrives in stores on Friday, November 23.

The cute little ZoneBridge is actually the best part of the news to me: rather than paying for a $350 ZonePlayer to connect to your router (which may be somewhere that will never need music), you can drop $100 to start the connection. As we told you earlier, ZoneBridges will also be good for fleshing out the mesh network in big-ass homes.The addition of the two music programs means that the Sonos now has a heady number of music-source choices. Both Rhapsody and Napster offer free anonymous no-credit-card one-month trials, so you'd be dumb not to try out both for the duration before making a decision. I've traditionally favored Rhapsody, but Napster is coming in $3 lower, at $10 per month, so that's going to make it a contender.

The Best Buy Digital Music Store is a Rhapsody-powered service that will cost $15 per month and won't have a free trial. However, it is a way for Best Buy to promote Sonos systems in the store, so I guess it has its purpose. Sonos also has Sirius and Pandora on the dial, for still more options. At some point, does it get too crowded in that Controller? I am starting to wonder. [Sonos]

Current owners can download Sonos 2.1 software which adds support for these new music stores as well as Apple iTunes 7 volume normalization and Windows Vista and WMP11 support. – Jason Chen

Product Update Page [Sonos]

Both Napster and Virgin used the PlaysForSure, a spec Microsoft may or may not continue to support in the future, thanks to its own competing Zune DRM. If we had to choose a service now, we'd probably go for Apple's iTunes, Rhapsody (with Sansa), or Microsoft's Zune, but only the latter two have subscription plans. – Jason Chen

Free Offer [Napster]

Virgin Shutters U.S. Music Subscription Service [Wired]

Napster has teamed up with local music retailer Tower Records to bring the all-you-can-eat deal in two flavors. Napster Basic for ¥1,280 (US$10.80) a month allows for the usual three PC deal, while another ¥700 gets you Napster To Go permission to offload tracks to portable players, including cellphones, but not iPods of course.

But there are plenty of snags, not least of which are the total lack of Mac support and the use of Windows Media 10 files that are DRM-ed to hell and back. – Jonny Hiratsuka

Napster lands in Japan with all-you-can eat music downloads [Digital World Tokyo]

Product Page [Via dapreview]

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.

Catch #1: you can only play each track a maximum of five times before you have to buy it for $0.99. You can pay Napster $9.95 a month to listen to unlimited music both offline and off, except that you can't listen to the music you download after you stop paying, or join Napster To Go for $14.95, which lets you transfer your music to compatible mp3 players. How does this suck?

Letting you play a track all the way through (albeit not in the greatest sound quality) five times + the 99 cent price is a nice touch as it makes you more likely to get addicted to a song they have on offer than the short clips the iTunes store provides. The subscription services are still as ludicrous as they were when first launched, especially Napster To Go, and we'd still much rather just buy a few tracks and own them for good, supplemented with listening to Last.fm's personalized radio stations.

Catch #2: Sharing a link is just that, passing along a text link to Napster's page to whatever it is. Here are two examples, the first url is the format you're supposed to pass by the email and the second the format for adding to sites: Basement Jaxx's Oh My Gosh(Radio Edit) and Sia's Breathe Me (Four Tet Remix). We can see how this would be useful for when you just want a friend to hear a song once or twice, but for linking on a website it's just ridiculous that you can't place a Napster-branded audio player for a particular song on your blog or MySpace, the way you can with video from YouTube, Google Video or Vimeo.

Napster, c'mon now, you've got to learn from the success of the video sites: if you want people to link to your media, you have to let them do it without making their users have to 1) immediately leave their site and 2) register with yours. A little less greed upfront will make using your site so much more useful and therefore more appealing.

Napster [via Alpha Blog]

Play for Napster (Requires Reg.) [NY Post Via I4U]

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.

XM + Napster Beta Begins [Zatznotfunny]

Take a breath of fresh air with the C&C Air from SK. The newest version of Napster is out, clearly aiming for Yahoo's market share in the online music subscription business. Sony brings out Mr. Bean (no, not Rowan Atkinson) to promote their new flash player, and Olympus exits the DAP business.

Another day, another PMP. At least this one has a cool name though; the C&C Air. The device sports a nice clean, uncluttered look, supports the usual bundle of video formats (MPEG, WMV, DivX), and includes a USB host connection for transfering from mass storage devices and digital cameras.

Napster isn't going down without a fight. Nevermind the fact that they're losing ground to the cheaper Yahoo music service (not to mention still being pummeled by iTunes), they're still trying, hence the version 3.5 upgrade of their software. It doesn't seem all that special at first glance; a few modifications to make the client better looking and easier to use, but the main upgrade is that downloads will be offered at 192 kbps WMA, instead of 128 kbps as they were previously. This puts them on par with Yahoo's download quality and above that of iTunes. Prices stay the same though, which is a bummer.

Sony's Walkman Bean hasn't exactly been receiving gushing reviews, so apparently Sony decided to bring out all the stops, including a beany Bean mascot. Okay so he (she?) is working in Korea now, but who knows, we could see this Bean roaming the streets of America, steering potential iPod Shuffle buyers toward the Bean. He's already got that "musical fruit" jingle to work with.

Though certainly not as disheartening as Rio's exit from DAP production, the ceasing of Olympus' m:robe line of players is still disappointing nonetheless. Not exactly known for packing in tons of features, the Olympus m:robe's had both style (better than Apple's perhaps) and ease of use going. Better grab an m:robe while you can!

That's it for today, audios!

The partnership means that you'll be able to download XM content over the Interweb and they will co-brand a number of satellite MP3 players in the next quarter. The overall WOW to HUH ratio is skewing towards the HUH side because you just know XM is going to trounce everybody once they have video and audio on demand in the next few years.

They also have a stupid name: XM+Napster. Notice who comes first.

XM + Napster Announced!! [Orbitcast.com]