While Napster were one of the most expensive legal music download services in the UK, they have now decided to cut its pricing from 99p to 79p, the price iTunes has been charging since its UK service launched. Basic album pricing has also fallen from £9.99 to £7.95.
However, there are a few strings attached to the new pricing: The cheaper pricing is also only available to paying subscribers and those paying by voucher or prepaid cards. Those paying by the track by credit card must still pay the original price, although Napster expects to include the offer for these customers later on. Napster has also cut bulk track purchases to £33.99 for 50 songs, £17.99 for 25 songs and £10.99 for 15 songs. By buying tracks in bulk, the pricing works out up to 14% cheaper than iTunes UK or close to what iTunes charges the rest of its European customers.
Napster UK also plans on introducing its Napster To Go service later this quarter. This new service requires Windows Media 10 Janus support on portable players and allows consumers to carry subscription (rental) music on the go. The catch is that the music expires after a certain period, but at least allows the consumer to download all they want so long as they pay the monthly flat rate fee. GristyMcFisty submitted the following news vis our news submit:
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The online music company also confirmed plans to bring its Napster To Go service, so far only available in the US, to the UK later this quarter. From today, the service said, individual tracks will cost £0.79, down from £0.99, while album prices fall from a base-level £9.99 to £7.95. There's a catch, of course. To pay the new, lower prices you have to be a subscriber, paying £9.95 a month to download any number of songs. The additional per-track and per-album prices need to be paid if you want to transfer the songs to a portable music player or burn them to CD. The prices also benefit non-subscribers acquiring music through music vouchers or pre-paid cards. Napster didn't say when the new pricing will be applied to everyone else - essentially folk who pay by credit card when they download - beyond a broad "in the coming days". Some more info can be found on NME news here. |
It looks like Napster are really trying to compete against iTunes now in the UK: Their track pricing beat iTunes when bought in bulk and their music is compatible with most WMA DRM players. Unfortunately, while they do offer flat-rate unlimited downloading, very few Janus compatible players are available at present.
Napster does have a few drawbacks in that they use WMA which is inferior in sound quality to AAC, not compatible with the world's most MP3
player - the iPod and their service only works on a Windows PC. While there is only a small Mac population out there, iTunes had a major success when it started only as a Mac service, thus showing that it is not only Windows fans that are paying customers when it comes to music.
Feel free to discuss and find out more about Napster on our Music Downloads, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) & Legal Issues Forum.
Source: The Register - eCommerce
