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Napster to offer DRM-free downloads

7 January 2008 17:03 by James "Dela" Delahunty | 1 comment

Following what seems to be a current trend, Napster will begin offering music downloads without any Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions within a few months. The brand "Napster" can claim a lot of the responsibility for building consumer interest in compressed digital audio files during its less-legitimate days as the dominant P2P application, but as a legitimate service it can only follow behind Apple's iTunes thus far.

Napster users will soon be able to buy DRM-free downloads of single songs or full albums from the service, but of course, the monthly subscription "rental" model should remain unchanged. While certainly a good announcement for consumers, Napster didn't have any extra details to offer up including any details about pricing or what major labels will be offering their DRM-free content through the service.

All the big four major record companies have either already started, or have announced plans to sell DRM-free music downloads through other outlets. "The ubiquity and cross-platform compatibility of MP3s should create a more level playing field for music services and hardware providers and result in greater ease of use and broader adoption of digital music," Napster CEO Chris Gorog said in a statement.

Gorog admitted to the Wall Street Journal that Napster is still currently negotiation terms with some of the major record companies. The DRM-free downloads will be available in the second quarter of 2008 in the MP3 format.

Source:
Ars Technica

Permalink to this article

Napster opens the world's largest DRM-free MP3 store (20 May 2008)

O2 will offer 5 million tracks from Napster (15 March 2008)

7Digital to offer DRM-free downloads from Warner (5 March 2008)

Play.com goes DRM-free in the UK (13 February 2008)

Napster posts small loss for Q3 (7 February 2008)

France to mandate ISP monitoring of customers for copyright infringement (29 January 2008)

Qtrax client finally available for download - but don't expect any music (28 January 2008)

Qtrax misses launch time - do they actually have a product yet? (28 January 2008)

IFPI annual report praises labels for being forced to ditch DRM (24 January 2008)

CES 2008: Studio executives reveal online strategy for coming year (8 January 2008)

Napster finally sees smaller net loss (2 November 2007)

Napster still trying to entice customers (16 October 2007)

Do DRM free downloads mean innovation in online music? (15 October 2007)

Former Napster founder isn't making much money in music licensing (13 October 2007)

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Discuss this article!
borhan9 (AfterDawn Addict) 9 January 2008 6:43
*Quote:* Following what seems to be a current trend, Napster will begin offering music downloads without any Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions within a few months. The brand "Napster" can claim a lot of the responsibility for building consumer interest in compressed digital audio files during its less-legitimate days as the dominant P2P application, but as a legitimate service it can only follow behind Apple's iTunes thus far. Well Napster has to follow the trend of itunes. This has been proven a successful method and i am sure napster will succeed as well. [ + quote]