NEW YORK (Reuters) - Napster Inc., the one-time renegade music download service, has returned to its roots with a new Web service which offers fans the chance to listen to over 2 million tracks for free.

The new service launched on Monday at Napster.com is supported by advertising and follows months of negotiations with record companies. Napster will split advertising revenue with the record companies based on the number of times one of their artists' songs is played.

The new service, which comes in addition to Napster's existing subscription service, also allows users to send direct links of chosen tracks to friends. Users can listen to songs up to five times on the free site before having to pay.


"We have built this new Napster.com as an open platform," said Chief Executive Chris Gorog in an interview.

Gorog told Reuters that he expects the free service will increase visits to the site, which had been selling music downloads and has seen about 2 million visitors a month. A higher traffic rate would also generate more in advertising dollars for the company.

Napster hopes the free service will also serve as a word-of-mouth marketing tool to hook new listeners onto its paid subscription service.

"I don't think free music is a hard sell," Gorog said.

The new Napster service has a Web-based music player, is compatible with Internet browsers on most computers and does not require a user to download any software

VANCE, Ashlee (2/5/2006), URL: www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/02/napster_barrier/

Unable to make even the smallest dent in Apple's iTunes music store, Napster has turned to drastic tactics. Napster CEO Chris Gorog this week stunned the online music world by acquiring the Steve Jobs reality distortion field.

How else can you explain this statement from a Napster press release?

"Napster was born of the idea of eliminating all barriers to discovering, enjoying and sharing music, and of putting the power in the hands of fans," Gorog said. "With a vision to empower music fans in a legal environment, with an open, all-inclusive platform, we are very excited to share our new free music experience at Napster.com."

Yes, that's how he chose to describe Napster's new "free" music service where anyone can sign up for an account and access the company's entire catalog of digital tunes without signing up for a subscription.

But is the deal as good as it sounds? Does it "eliminate all barriers" to enjoying music or "empower" music fans?

Erm, not exactly.

By "eliminating all barriers," Napster actually means that you can listen to a song five times for free before being cut off from the service. And while Napster claims that Mac and Linux users can now partake in this openness adventure, that's only a half-truth. Mac and Linux customers can do the five-download thing, but if they want to listen to songs more via Napster's subscription service, they'll have to shell out for a Windows box.

Oh, you have to fill out a Napster form to eliminate the barriers too.

In Napster, we find a well-trained poodle. The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has taught this pup to jump through some amazing hoops. We can't wait for the play six songs on Monday, twelve on Tuesday and 3.5 on Thursday empowerment program. As liberating as listening to a song five times might seem to Gorog, you have to believe that most consumers expect more.

If nothing else, Napster should back off trying to capitalize on its free-wheeling brand name by portraying its service as an open paradise. Treating potential customers like gullible buffoons tends to be a bad long-term business strategy.

You can see what an unfettered, empowering music rental service looks like here (www.napster.com/faq/) or you can buy a CD and dump it into iTunes.

I disagree with "VANCE, Ashlee" here. I think what Napster are trying to do is a good thing.

Treating potential customers like gullible buffoons They're treating them as customers not idiots. The people who know the score surely would agree.

It takes me back to my comments on JK's new chart idea, the Last.FM style "radio" could work well here if Napster are smart. A chart of songs which are bought after the five plays or even make it beyond 1 play is a very good gauge of what people want to hear and not what they're being forced to.

Hate to be conspiracy theorist but it looks awfully like Big Brother to me.

I did a mix for the new record on i-tunes, and tried to burn it off, to check it out in the car, when it reached a certain track, the burn stopped, as it was available for sale and coded, at the i-tune store.
This was particulary annoying as the track had been sent to me personally.
I think in the long run , codes on music will be a good thing, what I worry about, is getting an annoying load of legal enquiries, for legitimate, permissioned music.
I also do not like the idea that my computer is public knowledge.
If you can pin-point a song, pin-pointing an exel sheet is obviously as easy.I have nothing to hide, but it just appears plain rude!

The majorlabels use p2p-systems for years to generate valueable data for marketing purposes.

It's ok if the data is not traceable to a person, but with registration that is just want napster and others want: to sell personalised ads.

Agreed, I avoided those issues as I was concentrating on the main idea.