Napster goes DRM-free MP3

Napster's now selling its entire, multi-million-track catalog as $0.99 MP3s! Another nail in DRM's coffin.

"It's great that we have finally gotten here," said Chris Gorog, Napster's chairman and chief executive. "It is really the beginning of a level playing field, which I think is essential for Napster, but also for the health of the digital music business in general."

Tracks downloaded as part of Napster's subscription service will continue to have copyright restrictions.

For much of the decade, major record labels refused to license their music for downloading as MP3s. But steep annual declines in CD sales and the growing dominance of Apple Inc.'s iPod music players and its iTunes Music Store led the labels to ease that position last year to remain competitive.

Link

[#1 posted by Simeon , May 20, 2008 8:44 AM]

That's $1.55 per track, $15.60 per album if you live in the UK. How is it that the bits cost 50% more over here?
Also they are selling Microsoft DRM enabled WMA files - not quite the victory you think it is - you have to maintain a subscription to be able to play the music you've bought (on subscription).

[#2 posted by Alexandre Van de Sande , May 20, 2008 9:13 AM]

funny how things turn around right? I wouldn't be surprised that one day napster might offer theyr tunes for free and undrmed if they could find an alternative revenue stream.

And then suddenly napster took 10 years to go back to it's original form.

[#3 posted by beardface , May 20, 2008 9:25 AM]

Actually the whole point of the press release is that the whole catalog is available in DRM-free MP3, which is indeed pretty impressive.

Although, since you're talking about prices in the UK, I don't think this applies to you. It looks like the MP3s are available only in the US.

[#4 posted by reaktivo , May 20, 2008 9:26 AM]

Tracks downloaded as part of Napster's subscription service will continue to have copyright restrictions.

Do the nonsubscription tracks don't have copyright restrictions? They mean copy restrictions, right?

Also, about napster going back to its original form, I don't recall napster selling drm free tracks ever, but then again, I only used napster when you could download whatever you wanted, for free.

[#5 posted by Rick. , May 20, 2008 11:28 AM]

Napster started out DRM-free. In fact, it started out COMPLETELY free.

[#6 posted by Hubert Figuiere , May 20, 2008 12:23 PM]

From Canada, napster.com redirect to napster.ca and that one is something that require Windows-IE-DRM.

I guess world globalization is either late or not applicable.

Amazon MP3 has similar restrictions.

[#7 posted by Santa's Knee , May 20, 2008 12:58 PM]

MP3Sparks.com

[#8 posted by Xenu , May 20, 2008 1:57 PM]

BitTorrent was still just as good of a deal for the artists, last time I checked.

[#9 posted by trr , May 20, 2008 5:23 PM]

#1,
It takes energy to pump them through the trans-Atlantic underwater tube, and energy costs are rising. What else?

[#10 posted by adonai , May 20, 2008 5:31 PM]

Nothing in Australia, as usual. I went to Amazon a while back to buy some DRM-free mp3s of an obscure band and found they wouldn't sell to me. It's almost like they want me to go to TPB...

[#11 posted by Tenn , May 20, 2008 5:36 PM]

g2p.org does some easy search strings for those without GoogleFu. It searches Megaupload's database for you.