Napster's back!

R

RPS

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Well, Napster, is back. It was bought by Roxio inc and now is legal. Weird fact, it's not available for Macintosh. (...yet?) You'd think Roxio would look after it's Mac customers... apparently not.
 
Why would Roxio? It's not per se a Macintosh friendly company. It _bought_ Toast from Adaptec to expand their market.
 
I think they make the most money out of Mac users since the only other thing they sell is Easy CD Creator, which is nothing compared to the best selling Nero Burning app..
 
I downloaded the 'new' Napster onto my XP box this morning. What a POS! Now maybe I am little spoiled by iTunes and the ITMS, but Napster 2.0 looks and runs like Real One, the horrible media player. It's slow, and there are clearly elements ripped off from ITMS. IMO, this will be no competition to ITMS.
 
Napster, User licence; Privacy Policy:

AUTOMATIC DATA COLLECTION

Napster Client. After you register for the Napster service, you will be prompted to download our Napster Client software application. In order to make sure the Napster Client is functioning at its best, from time to time we may send the Napster Client automatic fixes, support files, etc. Napster employs software that is used to protect the copyrights associated with the tracks you listen to or obtain. In order to make sure that artists and copyright owners receive applicable royalties, this software identifies and counts the songs you have obtained and/or accessed. At the aggregate level (i.e., not tied to the personally identifying information of any user), we use this data to report and pay royalties, for internal analysis and we share this data with certain Partners for their own analysis. We do not share your personally identifying usage data with any third parties. We may use your personally identifying usage data for a variety of service-related purposes.

From time to time, the security on the Napster Client software may be upgraded by our supplier, which is currently Microsoft. Microsoft advises us that for security upgrades, your player will connect to an Internet site operated by Microsoft and will be sent a security file, along with a unique identifier, which does not contain any personal information about you and is not used to personally identify you or track your activities. Microsoft uses this information to prevent security breaches that could affect you. For more information, please feel free to read Microsoft's privacy policy at http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/windowsmedia/soft ware/v7/privacy.asp#_Security_Upgrade_(Individuali zation).

Further, when you access the service through a Partner and download the Napster Client, we will add certain of your registration information (such as your member name and, if applicable, the Partner or promotion through which you registered) to the registry settings on your computer's hard drive, so that we can recognize which of our Partners or other sign-in pages to send to you when you log on to the service.
Click to expand...

How does that sound to you? I would not want to run such spy/whatever-ware on my computer, even if they had an os x version. No gracias.
 
As you recall, napster was a free service. I don't think the public is gonna bite this time.
Name recognition will get their foot in the door, but if the interface is crap and the service is just as bad. Well you get the picture.

Of course people still use Windows Media Player and WinAmp so there has to be a connection between these two "features".
 
Microsoft blows. "...we will add certain of your registration information (such as your member name and, if applicable, the Partner or promotion through which you registered) to the registry settings on your computer's hard drive, so that we can recognize which of our Partners or other sign-in pages to send to you when you log on to the service."
In other words we frequently browse the configuration files on your HD and see what you are up to, secretly, and of course it's in your best interest that we do this.
 
I download Napster, and joined it for one month to test it all out. To my surprise, if you go to their online board for members only, you will see that there are like 15 different categories all based on music. Then there is one called Using Napster, which as about 5X more posts to it then any other subject. All of the posts I've read so far are from users who think that Napster is manipulating the people with their advertisements saying that for $9.95 you get unlimited downloads, but they can't burn them. Other parts of Napsters' Using Napster board talk about how to download the heavily DRMed songs, and rip the DRM right off of them. But most of what i have read are complaints because people are assuming you can do what you want with the songs at $9.95 a month. It's all kinda funny, Steve Jobs was right, people do feel like they are being treated like criminals. I have read several posts from several people on Napster saying they plan on canceling Napster, and going back to Kazaa as rebellion against what Napster is doing with the so called, manipulative advertisements.

The interface isn't ripped off of ITMS, it's actually Pressplay 3.0 (Pressplay never went beyond 2.0, but it looks like a steady progression from where it was heading). THe service is exactly like Pressplay, just with the ability to go a la carte. Big differences between Pressplay and Napster? There is a walking cat with head phones on loading, over use of the napster logo. And the only actual change that I can see, is a feature actually taken from Real's Rhapsody service. There is a strip of the screen to the right (as opposed to being on the left on Rhapsody) that allows you to organize your playlist as you listen to it. Other then that, it's a heavily remarketed version of a service that has been out for about 2 years.
 
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