Napster’s had it up to here (pointing near the top of my head) and wants to regain its position as the King of Online Music. The new Napster web store opened its doors today and features six million DRM-free tracks, most for 99 cents apiece and most full albums for $9.99, according to Reuters. You can still opt for subscription pricing at around $15 per month if you have a Napster-to-Go compatible portable player.
With this new DRM-free structure, Napster hopes to win away fans of Apple’s iTunes, which also sells certain DRM-free tracks, although many other tracks use Fairplay DRM and can only be used on Apple iPod and iPhone devices (unless you burn the tracks to a CD and then rip them back into iTunes as unprotected MP3 files). Napster’s service allows you to automatically transfer any purchased tracks into iTunes as unrestricted MP3 files that can then be transferred onto an Apple device.
Napster [Napster.com]