Resurrected Napster Pushes Paid Content, Plays Down P2P
What's in a name? According to a recent study noted in Forbes, 92 percent of consumers had heard of the Napster brand, far more than any other file downloading services. Small wonder that the "relaunching" of this service by Roxio as a DRM-secured music service with monthly subscriptions and 99-cent song purchases is gaining instant attention from the media. Rather lost in all the hubbub, though, is that there is little of the peer-to-peer file sharing capabilities that had established the brand name originally. This is a play by Roxio and its major partners (Microsoft, Gateway, Samsung and Yahoo!) to integrate music ecommerce into the PC-oriented world in a way that music publishers can support to their liking, a play that helps users to promote content on a peer basis but leaves little room for individuals as content distributors. While the new Napster will do a great deal to solidify the transition of music publishers to effective online merchandizing, the capability of individuals to add fundamental value to premium content will remain largely untapped.