Napster vs. iTunes: Rent Your Music, or Buy It?

I realize the legality issue but most of the music I listen to I CAN'T purchase online so I download for free. Until I am given the option to purchase music online (and at a reasonable price), I'll continue to download for free. The closest I've seen to what I want is a Russian company www.allofmp3.com which operates under an international license and pays royalties. They have about 80% of what I am looking for and a full downloaded cd is going to cost less than $2.00

Personally i have both a pc and a apple g4 and spend about 90% of my time on apple but still track pc's hoping for some Windows interface miracle i have used both itunes and napster on my pc and feel itunes is the winner because o its support for one of the most popular players (ipod) and its AAC audio compression which is much more accurate i feel then mp3, and its simplicity and as i have an apple all of the ilife programs work seamlessly

For $15 a month you either get a month's subscription to Napster or buy ~15 songs on iTunes.

Look at Napster's 10,000 song comparison this way. 10,000 songs at $0.99 a song costs $9900 on iTunes.

$9900/$15 a month = 660 months or 55 years of Napster's Subscription Model.

So Napster's subscription service is a good deal if you plan do download more than 15 songs a month EVERY MONTH for the next 5.5 decades.

That's my $.02

Henry, thats a very flawed view. you can make morethan your moneys worth compared to itunes by downloading more than 15 tunes a month. anything beyond tht u'ds doing goo

Napster model also has the advantage of being able to quickly fill in your player with music you like, but don't own on a CD yet. Just imagine costs of buying a couple of thousand songs vs. paying monthly rental fee.

Sad thing about buying music is that you have to buy the same songs over again as recording formats are changing. Think about all these LP collections that used to cost a lot of money to buy in the first place.

I would bet that 50 years later files you bought from iTunes today will be no more useful than old LPs.

50 year s later? I am not interested in what happens 50 years later. At the age of 51 I will more interested in flying harp music which does nothing for me currently.

I live in Singapore where the law of the land differ very much from the U.S. There you have the First Amendment to fall back on. Here, we don't. Just at the start of 2005, legislation has made downloading of copyrighted music, software and movies absolutely illegal, punishable by jail sentences and HEAVY fines.
Most of us are just waiting to see who they nap first and the extent of fines/jail sentences.

I don't mind buying CDs, but my particular interest is oldies and very few rare ones are re-released on CDs. From my personal collection of more than 20,000 vinyl albums, I have digistised most of the best tracks to CDs. I started doing that 8 years ago, when the software technology is not as advanced as now. I now find myself in an awkward position: some early efforts are not up to par. I have the option of re-doing the whole lot (if I live that long!) or risk languishing my remaining years in jail!
I have one question which I hope someone can help me with.
Recently, membership download sites have been springing up like mad. They assure that their service is 100% legit. You pay about US$30 - a one-time joining fee with no re-billing. I did some checking around and found that they actually piggyback on the popular p2p sites, somehow managing to bring together all the bandwidth and make searching and downloading much faster.
My chief concern is what is to stop them from shutting down after a year or so when they've made enough money? Also, the legality issue is still uppermost.

Are there anyone here who has used the service? And are you from the U.S.? Dare I hope that you are also from Singapore?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Larry

I live in Singapore where the law of the land differ very much from the U.S. There you have the First Amendment to fall back on. Here, we don't. Just at the start of 2005, legislation has made downloading of copyrighted music, software and movies absolutely illegal, punishable by jail sentences and HEAVY fines.
Most of us are just waiting to see who they nap first and the extent of fines/jail sentences.

I don't mind buying CDs, but my particular interest is oldies and very few rare ones are re-released on CDs. From my personal collection of more than 20,000 vinyl albums, I have digistised most of the best tracks to CDs. I started doing that 8 years ago, when the software technology is not as advanced as now. I now find myself in an awkward position: some early efforts are not up to par. I have the option of re-doing the whole lot (if I live that long!) or risk languishing my remaining years in jail!
I have one question which I hope someone can help me with.
Recently, membership download sites have been springing up like mad. They assure that their service is 100% legit. You pay about US$30 - a one-time joining fee with no re-billing. I did some checking around and found that they actually piggyback on the popular p2p sites, somehow managing to bring together all the bandwidth and make searching and downloading much faster.
My chief concern is what is to stop them from shutting down after a year or so when they've made enough money? Also, the legality issue is still uppermost.

Are there anyone here who has used the service? And are you from the U.S.? Dare I hope that you are also from Singapore?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Larry

I agree!

One thing isn't clear to me in all the press reports on the new Napster to Go service. Can I burn any of those unlimited downloads to CD, or do I have to pay for those separately? I don't have an MP3 player (yes, I know I'm behind the times), so I either listen to downloaded music on my computer or burn it to CD. Can anyone clear up this point of confusion for me?

does anyone know if allofmp3.com is legal to use from the U.S.? i'm assuming it's not, right??

This argument is like debating whether you'd rather have a Quarter pounder with Cheese or a Wendy's big bacon classic?

I say -- why not get steak? I use TotalRecorder to save my MusicMatch service streams. It automatically tags every song, saves it in MP3 format with the LAME DLL, and they sound great (320 kps) . So I get:
1. All the downloads I want, for free
2. I don't have to go on a P2P system to steal them or fill my computer with spyware
3. I still compensate the artists and music companies through the subscription fee, so I'm not ripping them off.

hahaha, 320kbps...you can encode as high as you want but you'll only get the quality of the original source, which is streaming audio. Streaming audio = fast download speed = low bitrate. You're just upconverting 64kbps audio there, buddy...

At 320kbps he's going to be playing music back through his stereo that sounds exactly what it would've sounded like had he connected his computer to his stereo or listened through headphones.

I feel sorry for all of you "discriminating audiophiles" that require perfect sound to enjoy music. The rest of us will save our $$ while you search for the perfect sound

With an Ipod you get the best of both worlds. Audio files that can be burned, backed up and reinstalled. And the portable media storage with space that blows anything else away.

I use to have a CD collection, now it is all on my PC connected to my sterio via a wireless network using airport express. What once was a CD collection that comprised 300+ CD's, is now on 2 DVD.

Given time, itunes will have a the kind of selection that PnP file sharing provides. As a matter of fact itune offers something similar and other user can purchase music from you own library.

Correction on last statement.

Other users can purchase music from your published music list, it still needs to be listed in Itunes music store database, as a file that Itunes offers for sale. if it is not available through Itunes it won't be listed in your published list.

Just wanted to clarify that....

I just started using itunes as it came on a new laptop and my daughter has been using it since Xmas when she received an IPOD. I like it a lot more then Windows media player, they kept it simple and easy to use. The napster comparison to ITunes is flawed. Like the food coupons you get $1.00 off if you buy 3, but you don't need three. No one is going to buy all the music that going on the portable music players, most are ripping the cds they already own. I'm in the process of putting all my cd collection on the laptop. I might buy an odd song here and there but mostly what I want (mid 40's here) is older and not available. The early days of Napster etc. were great for getting all those old classical rocks songs that have gotten lost or misplaced or gotten rid off that just arent' available anymore. Tried to find a Paul McCarthney and Wings song the other night but didn't have it. But I pay to own not rent. I don't think $1 is unreasonable if they are the songs you want.

Yea does anyone knnow what the deal is with using this service and then buring your "rented" music on to a cd and then just re ripping it back on to your comp???

I'm asking again with Zabaco because it was never answered before...If you rent your music from Napster for $14.95 a month, can you burn those songs to a cd and virtually get all the songs in the world for 15 bucks????? What's the catch?

I can finally answer that and my own question now. After more research this is what I found: You can but these encrypted songs on to your portable device (where they stay encrypted and must be renewed every 30 days) but if u want to burn them to a CD u will have to pay the buck a song. (Just like Itunes)
Heres where I got that info from: http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,66474,00.html?tw=wn_7culthead

I can see the allure of the Napster model, but ultimately a person listens to basically the same thing again and again with slight variation. Napster makes it sound like you're gonna completely refill your MP3 player with new tunes every month. Yeah, right. 60-70% of the player will be filled with your own music collection right from the start. The remaining 30% might be some new things you're curious to hear, but eventually, you'll either want to keep those or disregard as that percentage shrinks. So, in the end, I'm paying a monthly fee for my OWN music collection. No thanks. I'll stick with iTunes. They did it right the first way.

ok i have an iPod mini and iTunes and i love them i rip all of my cd and all of my friends cds so it really doesnt cost that much for me to get the music and why would you want to rent music you dont get to keep it i get to keep all my music on my iPod and if im understanding this you have to pay $15 a moth wich will add up eventually so for me iTunes is cheaper

I think they should make downloads free
I mean thats bull to charge money for a song

It really could cost less to fill up your ipod using itunes. If you buy cds on itunes instead of individuals songs it cuts the price in half.

I still think its to much to pay $10,000 for a 10,000 songs or for 55 year subscribtion, i could probably buy myself something better with that money.

I read that on www.cnet.com you can fill up an iPOD for free. thye music is all copy-protected, so it doesn't get uploaded to P2P sites, but that's an advantage, right?

Most of you have a very biased view on this, you are forgetting the fact that a standard CD on iTunes is only 10.00$. So if you think about it you can get a 15-20 song CD for 10.00$, reducing that number by half. So if you are wise about your iTunes use you can get much better deals.

I think itunes is a better deal than napster because wat is the point of renting music and if u dont download at least 15 songs a month, you are being ripped off. Also, itunes is easier to use and stuff like that

Quoth Ryan:
"I think they should make downloads free
I mean thats bull to charge money for a song"

So basicly, there is no profit for the hosting company AND the band. That would make hosting them pointless from a bisiness point of veiw. Writers/singers/bands allready dont't get half the profits from their music(Illeagal downloads, ect). So that'll never happen. Sorry to burst your bubble.

im thinking about buying an ipod, should i or should i just keep on buying cd's?

I'm a Big I-pod Fan. My friend has the ones for apple and i've been waiting for the pc version. and no matter what napster does. i still will support my i-pod. and you do have to take the mb size of the i-pod. If its the mini its only $1,000. The 20mb is $5,000. It's only $10,000 if you spend the $400 on the 40mb i-pod wich i didn't. I got the 20mb. I filled it up with the 5,000 songs and i'm happy. So unless you want to get rid of your music as soon as you don't have $15 dollars a month. Be my guest and get The napster thing. With i-pod you will enjoy all the music even after you stop downloading.

so on the Napster deal, if you pay the fifteen dollars a month, you can't download songs to your mp3 player. If not what is the point of even paying it

I'm still confused. As I understand it, Itunes can only be played on an ipod and Napster tunes can only be played on Creative, Dell and iriver players. This is because Itunes download in an MPEG-4 format and Napster tunes dowload in an MWA format. At the same time, my CDs convert onto my computer in an MP3 format. Is there a way to download itunes and napster tunes into one single mp3 format and play them on any player you want?

I beleive that the favorable service varys from person to person. If you like only specific and few amounts of songs and you have a good amount of money, you might want to go iTunes. But if you like the freedom of searching for anything and as much as you want, and music is listed as one of your top hobbies, then you might want napster. as for me i have other sources of music. well thats all i have to say, bye

why pay for music downloads when you can get em for free!?

Okay, as for the legitamicy of downloading music, in the U.S, there are no laws against Downloading music for free, and untill there are I'll download till I'm dead!

OK, i have one of those sets of parents that will NOT let me download music for free because it's illegal, but they wont pay .99 per song. I need some type of legal site that i can pay a set fee per month and download songs off of that monthly fee. Is there a site out there, and if there is what is the price. Email me if you know at Cabo12@aol.com thanks

I just buy CDs and rip them onto my computer, you get sometimes more songs that way, and also, you're not doing anything illegal. You pay to host the band, company, ect., and you also get a backup if your computer fails (the CD as backup). And you dont have to waste time on websites and deal with popup ads.

ok how can you even compare a cd to a riped audio format? you can not! a cd sounds sooo much better, than a Ipod, or other mp3 player, you should also read a review by consumers report, they rate creative as the best sounding mp3 player out there this is using lab equipment. also if you are buying music to love and keep you should buy a cd, think about it you have the art a real backup of the cd(the original it well never sound this good again). if you want music you can play run around with save your money and go with a napster style store.

chirs has somewhat of a good point. If you have a band you love buy the cd. If there is a one-off song you love, I say go with Itunes. At least with Itunes its yours for good. Chris what "lab" equipment did they use? As an Audio Engineer I want to know?

it seems rather pointless to pay to rent music, when if you want to burn a cd for your car, work, or stereo, you still have to pay 1 dollar per song. That whole ad napster put up seemed pretty fishy with the price difference, and the whole lack of portability under that rent fee is a show stopper for me.

Well, we have gone through the 8-track, vinyl records, cassette tapes, and now it is safe to say we have gone through CD's. Who in their right mind wants to pay $12 per CD when you can pay $14 a month and listen to 100x more music. All just to own a CD? Well it's nice and great to own some tracks, but you can go back and listen to them whenever you want.

Buy an FM transmitter for your car and an mp3 player and get over it.

mine i used cassete adapter + rio player. unlimited songs for 15 dollars...cant beat that. I hope apple do offer subscription service.

Also, if you want to buy an entire album, you can often get the CD from amazon.com with club pricing (and joining "the club" means just buying two CDs as far as I can tell).

I believe that you can legally rip CDs to any format you want and play them on as many computers, players, etc as you want. So in that respect, buying a CD this way would beat the itunes album deal. My only reservation about buying itunes/walmart WMA music is that these services and others that will pop up use proprietery encodings that can only be played on particular players. So waht happens if you're a loyal itunes user, but then Walmart does what they did, and starts offering songs for 88 cents? That's a 10% difference, which is pretty huge if you consider buying all your music this way. So you then switch to walmart, but now the songs you bought from walmart and the songs you bought from itunes can't be played on the same player. And just as fast as they produce players to play both encodings, these companies will be producing new encodings that are tougher to crack, etc.

It seems like CDs are the most reliable way to go if you want to buy music. Renting is another matter altogether, I wouldn't do it just because I have no guarantees those companies and those deals will be around forever, in which case I could end up wasting a lot of money. But to each his own.

Oh yeah, one important point - by club pricing, I meant $9.99

I don't usually get involved in these discussions, but I came across this while searching for another place to buy songs individually, without paying some absurd monthly fee for the honor of hearing a song until either the company or the technology becomes obsolete. I've been buying from Walmart.com, but creeping Jesus, they need to speed the process up a bit! Sometimes I even click "buy" and nothing ever happens (yes, I am using broadband). I think they just need some better designers working for them. The 88 cents (plus tax) is a fine deal, and I've had no problem converting the tracks to other formats and playing them on anything I want. I just can't stand the difficulty of use with their system.

I'm a recording artist, myself, so I understand that we can't give it all away. The whole issue is just getting insane. Free downloads greatly improve sales when used properly. It's no different than product samples at the grocery. "Give 'em a taste, if you're confident that they'll like it!" Last note on that aspect: Punish the greedy companies making money off the illegal downloads and stop going after your own fans. That kind of action is down right foolish.

My thought on the "Napster vs. iTunes" issue is simply that neither is acceptable, in my opinion. There MUST be something new, and I think Walmart.com is at least a step in the right direction.

Renting music is great until the company goes out of business. What happens when Napster bites the dust? You'll have paid all this money for so long only to end up with a whole lot of files that refuse to play. Additionally, at 99 cents per song - napster is actually LOSING money. Their goal is that eventually they'll gain control of the market and start making money. Sounds like a big risk to me.

Nay, iTunes seems to be the way to go. Sure they may go out of business sometime in the future - but at least you've still got what you paid for.

My problem with napster is that I dont download 15$ worth of music every month. I just downloaded 18$ worth of music from itunes and I did not download anything the three months prior. That means if i had used Napster i would have just spent 45$, for the same thing. Also would you want to go to a record store to rent a cd? I can not imagine renting cd's for 15$ a month. My last point. If i tunes fails and folds I still have my music on my ipod and my pc. If napster folds my entire napster collection of music is gone.

Would Renting a entire Cd for $4.99 for 2 week with the option to buy for retail price minus rental fee be concidered a good deal? I mean if you had the ability to listen to the Cd entirely before deciding to buy it would you consider joining a membership to "blockbuster" to rent music like movies?

what is wrong with both options?

Napster "rents and SELLS! Some want to rent some want to buy, some want to do a bit of both! Why should I let apple lock me into buying because they "tell me" people don't wan't to rent, they wan't to buy. Nobody asked me but I will tell anyone.

I WAN'T TO RENT RENT RENT !!

I have bought 3 songs and I don't get anymore use or enjoyment out of them than renting.

P.S. Some people buy smokes at $10 bucks a pack a maybe 1 or two times a week. After xx amount of years they have nothing to show for it other than maybe lung cancer.

The amount of money I spend on renting is small and manageable.

I used to collect cassettes and where are they now? Probably in a landfill. I bought used cd's from a pawn shop and how often do I listen to them? Rarely ever.

I will support music subscriptions 100%

I will probably never buy another track in the foreseeable future unless some amazing thing happenned.

I agree totally - there are so many CDs that I probably wouldn't want to pay $10-$20 but can listen to/download on Napster.

$15 a month for pretty much all the music I could ever listen to????? I spend a lot more than $15 a month on significantly more mundane things.

It's such a great way to discover so much more music than you'd ever be exposed to if you had to actually buy everthing you listened to.

itunes is the best bargain...here's why.

Back in the old days of just buying CD's, you very often had to pay for music you did not want. Let's say you like U2, but there are only three songs on The Joshua Tree you really want. You still have to pay for all the other songs to get it. If a CD costs $15 but you only want 3 of those songs, that's $5 a song. The other songs you pay for are a waste.

With itunes, you only have to spend $3 now to get those 3 songs. This is much for efficient. If you spend $1000 on CDs during a few years, you are paying for many songs you probably don't want. If you spend $1000 on itunes over a few years, every single song you know you enjoy and its much more efficient.

Napster is clearly not a good deal because although you CAN download any song you want, how much music can you listen to? most people have a select group of songs they really want to listen to. Most people have a CD collection already they can easily burn onto MP3, so they don't need Napster for that. Unless you are someone who likes to constantly new and different music, itunes will be a better deal, especially in the long run. The moment you stop using Napster, your whole collection is gone and you have zero. You buy an itunes song you thereotically have it forever.

Let's be clear here, there is "Napster to go" which you rent and there is also the ability to purchase singles, just as itunes. So if you want to explore a large variation of music, you can. If you want to buy a track or album, it is your option. I don't see any benifit to itunes that Napster does not have, as long as you are buying.

I have learned a lot of music I never would have known, if it was not for Napster. I'm only on the basic Napster service now for $10 a month. Every so often, Napster offers 10 purchases for paying three months in advance. Napster also offers the ability to buy so many tracks in advance for discounts fees, such as 50 tracks for $39.95. I'm thinking of getting a Creative Zen Micro so I can subscribe to the napster to go.

So as I see it you can do as much of more with Napster. Another reality is no one site will have all the music you want. itunes will have songs Napster won't and vice versa.

I really like using the Napster service basic ($10.00/mo) because I don't think I would ever actually walk around with a ipod/i-river, etc and I have a nice Klipsch sound system hooked up to my pc. I pay $10/mo to have almost an unlimited selection and it's like a digital jukebox for me. Anytime family or friends come over , they can look up anything they like and listen to it in near cd quality sound anytime, instantly. I rarely like to own a cd unless it's a classic item, so for me Napster is best.

I am VERY confused. so this is what i'm getting. on Napster basic ($10/mo) you can look up as many songs as you want; but if you want to purchase the song you have to pay an extra $1 per song. is that right?? and also what is Napster compatible with?

I don't feel a need for owning certain things - like music and CDs. (Well I'm messy so they get everywhere, they get coffee or beer in the inlays, the CDs get scratched sometimes, they're never in the right case.) So Napster's great. And if it goes bust I don't mind. To me it's music on demand-like TV. The music I have downloaded isn't mine. I don't think of it as if it were. It's on my computer so it can play without streaming. In the past few months Napster seems to have gone from one million to two million tracks.

I kinda think it's the other way round. What if I buy a song, and the company goes out of business and the DRM system gets obsolete? Then I've paid a premium to own the track and now I can't listen to it. But that's probably my ignorance.

What do you get?
Napster Subscription - as much music as you want for a month for a flat fee to be played on up to three computers. You can listen to any of this music on PC without paying anything more. But you can't burn the music. And you can't listen to it when you end your subscription (but it's fine if you later re-subscribe).

Napster to Go: Same as above but you get to put it on a portable player also.

Napster Lite - if you want to be able to listen to a track whenever you want without subscription, put it on CD, etc, you do so by paying for the song.

iI don't want Napster at all and if it keeps comming up on my computer i will leagally insure it does not!!