20 May, 2008
Napster’s Entire 6 Million Track Catalogue Now DRM Free
Posted by: asasAnything But iPod In: MP3 Players
Back at CES 2008 Napster announced plans to make their entire catalogue DRM free. Today it joins stores like Amazon and Zune who also offer a part of their library DRM free. The downloads will remain at the same price as before (99 cents per track and $9.99 per album) and will be offered in 256kbps MP3 with high resolution (1,000 x 1,000 pixel) album art. By contrast Zune Marketplace and Amazon offer 320kbps MP3s.
There is one part of this story that is really aggravating in that people who have purchased previously ala carte downloads that were DRMed will not be able to trade for unprotected versions of the music they paid for. Don’t blame Napster, this decision made by the record labels showing us one again they don’t care about their customer base. Once again the DRM customer is screwed. Please vote with your dollars and never purchase DRM content since its expatriation is inevitable.
[CNet | Napster PR]