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Napster launches in the UK

updated 07:25 am EDT, Thu May 20, 2004

Napster launches in the UK


, Europe's leading online music store, announced that it will be cutting prices by up to 50 percent to remain competitive. Napster, meanwhile, boasted that its catalog of 500,000 songs is the largest in Europe, and said it would expand its offerings to 700,000 songs within 30 days. Apple declined to comment on Napster's UK launch, telling Reuters only that it plans to launch its service in Europe by the end of summer.


by MacNN Staff

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  1. vickys-box

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Apr 2004

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    05/20, 07:51am | report spam | Reply |

    Ooo Look

    Napster bozo rental requirements, unless you're prepared to pay £1.09 per track.

  1. 365

    Forum Regular

    Joined: Aug 2002

    0
    05/20, 08:08am | report spam | Reply |

    I forgot..

    How much does it cost to use the iTunes store.. Oops taht's right nothing :D

    Why would I pay over £9 for a service that I can get free elsewhere?

    Not that I can use it on my Mac, perhaps people will criticise Napster for using a closed system where they exclude all OS's other than Windows.

    This is non news

  1. koolkid1976

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: May 2003

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    05/20, 08:17am | report spam | Reply |

    Early Bird?

    It's not just the "Early Bird" theory why iTunes is number one. It's because they are good. Buymusic.com beat Apple to Windows, and iTunes wiped the floor with them. So even a years head start would hardly be enough for Napster to win Europe over iTunes, much less a couple months.

  1. Bloody Brit

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Mar 2004

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    05/20, 09:06am | report spam | Reply |

    LOL a defeat for napster

    The news just reported on this, and when mentioning MP3 players, what did they say? iPod! does the iPod work with Napster? No!

    not much, but it shows that the iPod has become THE mp3 player.

  1. johnhood

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Apr 2003

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    05/20, 09:15am | report spam | Reply |

    Crapster

    iTunes is only a month (or so) from a European release. ; )

  1. iJed

    Dedicated MacNNer

    Joined: May 2001

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    05/20, 10:55am | report spam | Reply |

    Hugely overpriced

    I can't believe that anyone would pay these kind of prices to buy music from Napster. Hopefully iTMS will wipe the floor with it when its finally introduced in the UK. There is no way I'm paying anything over 89p though...

  1. JKT

    Professional Poster

    Joined: Jan 2002

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    05/20, 11:02am | report spam | Reply |

    This bodes very badly

    If the pricing here reflects what's in store for iTMS Europe... jesus, are the music industry purposefully trying to kill legit online music distribution? £1.09 is roughly US$1.90 at today's exchange rate - that's almost *twice* the price of the US online market. VAT will be included in European prices, but it certainly is not 50% !!

    If this is what iTMS debuts at here in the UK, they can kiss my money goodbye as that is a ridiculous amount to be paying for a lossy format. 70 pence is much more like the price it should be.

  1. blingerman

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: May 2004

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    05/20, 11:04am | report spam | Reply |

    it's not rental...

    you're missing it...

    you can either buy individual tracks or entire albums JUST LIKE on iTunes music store...

    OR

    if you want... you can pay a monthly fee... and not have to buy anything... but you can listen to any song in the entire library as much as you want... on up to 3 computers... on your TV/home stereo... whatever...

    700K songs... in order to do that on iTunes you would have to buy them all...

    there's a place for both subscriptions and per track/album purchases... napster has them both... it's ok to accept that... even if steve doesn't believe it... you can.

  1. JKT

    Professional Poster

    Joined: Jan 2002

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    05/20, 11:05am | report spam | Reply |

    That should have been...

    100%, doh!

  1. vickys-box

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Apr 2004

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    05/20, 12:39pm | report spam | Reply |

    It is rental

    You pay £9.95 per month to stream the library and/or to store tracks on "your hard drive". If you want to _buy_ the music you pay £0.99 per track or albums "starting at £9.95" on top. Alternatively, you have Napster Lite which allows 30 second clips and you pay £1.09 per track.

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