Napster To Offer First Download Subscription

Gorog runs Apple rival Napster, which offers digital downloads and a music subscription deal. Consumers get unlimited access to listen to 700,000 songs for $9.95 monthly.

The hitch is that to move songs onto a portable digital device or to a CD costs extra: $1 a song. That’s one of the reasons digital music fans have not taken to the subscription model — also offered by Real Networks’ Rhapsody — in a big way.

But Gorog thinks that will change next year. And he has other heavyweights such as Yahoo and Microsoft in his corner.

Microsoft earlier this year developed a new copyright protection plan that allows for the transfer of subscription songs to portable players. For $5 more a month, consumers can transfer Napster’s entire catalog to their device — and listen as often as they’d like — as long as they subscribe.

With the top-of-the-line iPod, "You can fit 10,000 songs on it," Gorog says. But "to do that would cost you $10,000 if you bought the songs from Apple. With our plan, customers can get 10,000 songs on their device for $180 a year. It’s an enormous value."

The caveat is that Microsoft’s copyright plan doesn’t work with iPods, or virtually any player now on the market.

Only a handful of devices, including MP3 players from iRiver and Gateway, work with the subscription plan offered by Napster and by FYE.com. But in January, devices from Virgin, Creative Technology and Rio will offer software upgrades to make their most recent models compatible with Microsoft’s technology. Many more devices also are expected to follow next year."

Read the full USA Today article here.