Since its rebirth through Roxio in 2003, Napster has been trying to recapture its original audience of young adults who want lots of convenient music for a low amount of cash. Though it has generally lagged behind iTunes, Amazon and Rhapsody, a new change to its pricing scheme may very well tip the balance and put Napster back in the spotlight.
For only $5 per month, users can gain access to unlimited streaming music for as long as they have a subscription, the lowest cost of any comparable service. However, what’s more notable is that this subscription tier also comes with five free song downloads a month. As Rick Broida pointed out at cnet, that’s basically getting unlimited, free streaming music with your five single song downloads.
As an independent artist myself, I’ve found that Napster is surprisingly lucrative, relatively speaking. iTunes is by far where I sell the most music through third-parties, eclipsing Napster, the third most popular service for my music, by a factor of at least 12. Still, Napster beats out Rhapsody and eMusic by a long shot and just about matches sales on Amazon.
(A fun little side note: after over a year of streamed plays on last.fm, my royalties from that company haven’t even amounted to 25 cents.)
Napster cuts music plan to $5 a month [Associated Press]
