How much is the monthly subscription to napster

[mkjuk]

Is it worth it?

[naz_nomad]

It not called 'Cr^pster' for nothin'

[WoWo]

So I take it naz_nomad you have used the service?

I have had a napster subscription for over a year, �10 a month, unlimited downloads, but only playable on a choice of 3 PC's and if you go for the �15 a month option you can transfer onto a compatible MP3 player. *

If you want to keep the tracks you can download them as per iTunes for a similar price, however unlike iTunes downloaded tracks are totally free from any DRM restrictions.

Brilliant in my opinion.

* There are various methods in which you can remove the DRM and play on any PC/MP3 player or burn to CD but thats very naughty

[fo3nix]

WoWo: they're not free of DRM restrictions at all. They also tell people some serious ********.

Napster, as well as the iTunes Music Store, and pretty much all of the "legal stores" right now sell you music crippled with DRM. This stops you using them however you like, unless you remove the DRM, which in the UK is, I believe, illegal.

[fo3nix]

Napster say they would like to have their music used on iPod too but Apple don't want them to. This is crap and Napster know it. If people just sold the music as mp3s with no DRM it could be used on any device at all because they can all play mp3s. But the record industry execs are frightened that this will lead to people sharing the music (oh dear!!), and thus forced iTunes to develop their own DRM on their iTunes Music Store (hence why it's only compatible with the iPod). Thus microsoft countered this and jumped on the bandwagon by creating their own DRM crippling features called PlaysForSure, which the majority of the other "legal music stores" use, like Napster. Given this is a different DRM, it's not compatible with iPod. So really it's nothing to do with Apple at all. If Napster wanted to let iPod users into the game they'd just sell mp3s with no DRM, but the music industry execs won't allow this.

Recently announced however is a simple program that removes the PlaysForSure DRM from such files, like ones downloaded from Napster. So to buy legally from Napster then remove the DRM seems like cheapest method. But removing the DRM is illegal so you might as well just download from a P2P network...