AfterDawn: News

Napster failing to impress students

According to a survey conducted by a University customer, Napster has managed to make less people buy music from its music store, but has helped its biggest rivals sell more songs. Not one University of Rochester student admitted to purchasing any track from Napster’s catalogue during the Fall 2004 semester but the same people bought from other legal alternatives like Apple's iTunes. This is terrible news for Napster which has tried to dominate sales to students.

Napster offers universities dirt cheap rental services for their students to try to keep them away from illegal music downloading. The students can then download as much music and listen to it as they want to. Napster has been marketing its music rental service to consumers, claiming that its monthly fee beats the hell out of paying $10,000 to fill an iPod with music.



That claim is ridiculous for many reasons, but largely because a massive amount of music stored on iPods usually comes from the user's CD collection or their friend’s collection of music. This attacking strategy led to Napster reporting a $24 million fourth quarter loss.

Source:
The Register

Written by: James Delahunty @ 9 Jul 2005 16:52

• Previous article

• Music Industry wins German case against allofmp3.com

• Next article

• Rarewares removes DVD-Audio tools following legal threats

• 20 comments

• Auslander

  not a shocker...in the end, i'm sure p2p will win. it's in human nature to share, no matter how much greed or want is in our civilization. we wouldn't live in groups if we didn't survive by sharing our bounty.
  

  If only I was half wolf...
  
  http://allpoetry.com/poets/Auslander http://www.fictionpress.com/~ghostlyauslander
  Ich bin ein Ausländer. Damn proud to be a furry! :D
  

  9.7.2005 17:14 #1

• benjers

  Well Said
  

  9.7.2005 17:53 #2

• Auslander

  thank you...i do the best i can :-)
  

  If only I was half wolf...
  
  http://allpoetry.com/poets/Auslander http://www.fictionpress.com/~ghostlyauslander
  Ich bin ein Ausländer. Damn proud to be a furry! :D
  

  9.7.2005 18:03 #3

• borhan9

  Well again napster should of realized from day one that after loosin there case they have nuch ground to make up

  9.7.2005 21:33 #4

• nohelpme

  I honestly feel the p2p movement... and it is a movement..will eventually lead to a new type of economic thinking. Eventually, software will all be free in some format...or greatly reduced in price to the point we will all take it for granted...as we all get faster and faster broadband connections...why not download content if it is there for the taking? The average family of 4 can't afford to go the movies anymore. Why not download them? They are not even good copies to be honest... not like I would know heheh

  10.7.2005 05:47 #5

• Auslander

  that would lead to a form of communism, though, and as shown in the past, communism fails...mainly because people are greedy anal sphincters. but a share-and-share-alike world would be lovely. maybe people could afford stuff if their anally-enlarged governments and their leaders didn't waste everything.

  10.7.2005 05:59 #6

• nohelpme

  Oh no...no communism....more like a sharism... I am not awake enough to explain it but you can see that economics of the software buisness are changing. Could this change spread to other sectors of the economy??? We shall see...

  10.7.2005 07:21 #7

• Auslander

  i wouldn't complain if it happened...i'd love to see a major shift in the mechanics of our economics.

  10.7.2005 07:35 #8

• nohelpme

  I think it seems to be coming. Think about it..we can all go on the internet theoretically with our highspeed connections and download any song, dvd, movie in theatres, tv episode. Now I am not saying that it legal, just saying you can do that makes these big studios compete with free services. This makes them put out more for less. I see big changes in the way we pay for things, how we pay for things, and if we feel we should pay for things. A whole generation is now being raised with a "share" mentality. That has to change economics in someway.

  10.7.2005 07:53 #9

• Auslander

  god willing, this will happen soon. *crosses fingers*

  10.7.2005 07:56 #10

• kinza

  I tried Napster but it sucked, is there anything better, I don't have an iPod.

  10.7.2005 17:52 #11

• Auslander

  Limewire Pro :-)

  10.7.2005 17:55 #12

• kinza

  isn't that illegal if you don't have the originals?

  10.7.2005 18:01 #13

• Auslander

  pff..."illegal"...it's all about semantics XD

  10.7.2005 18:06 #14

• kinza

  yes, of course...

  10.7.2005 18:08 #15

• Auslander

  to be serious (and legal) for a moment, i really can't think of anything beyond napster and itunes, but i'm sure someone has some decent alternative.

  10.7.2005 18:17 #16

• nohelpme

  Nope....still a dollar a song is too much....

  11.7.2005 04:25 #17

• Auslander

  when you work it out, that's often what you pay, per song, for a cd, anyway.

  11.7.2005 04:34 #18

• mw9667

  Napster's $14.95 per month subscription to play all the music you want on your iPod (or other player) is steep when you can get pretty much the same music for $6.99 per month with Yahoo Unlimited. That's what I use, and it's well worth the money, when you consider the cost of cd's.

  16.7.2005 12:59 #19

• jAmEsTn

  Quote:Well again napster should of realized from day one that after loosin there case they have nuch ground to make up Napster was sold to Roxio for $4 Mil... Still dont use Roxio, and will never pay for music downloads!.. enough said ;)
  
  why dont you people who download albums off these pay for play services get real. you "DO" realize used CD's from amazon.com cost about 3 bucks or sometimes just a lil more after shipping?.. rip the disc to yer computer and u have an album "without restrictions" and you have the CD also.. for about 8 or 9 dollars less. and it's legal to backup copy CD's you own am i correct?
  
  Can someone tell me how wrong it is to charge someone to burn a disc with songs on them? ... how about losing all of your music after you cancel your subscription.. or how bout the DRM restrictions on the files... and what about the loss in sound quality... people.. what you're basically doing is supporting a corrupt industry whos distribution medium is that of the past.... *which should "i wish" be dieing right about now because of newer alternatives*... feeding money them pigs to rip you off with crap like restrictions, quality, and subscriptions. do the research!... support used cd vendors as they dont support the industry!

  1.8.2005 10:44 #20