Bargain Basement Priced Music For Difficult Times
The Napster people had quite a rocky start as the location where music lovers could find each other and, using the Napster software, trade their music over the Internet. No money was ever exchanged. It was a bit like selling bootleg CDs except that nobody made any income from it. In fact it was the free part of the model that angered the recording artists and record labels. Eventually Napster settled with the recording industry, with a huge financial award. They learned their lesson well enough to completely change their business model.
Napster.com, the same company that started as just a vehicle for peer-to-peer music exchanges, has now become the owner of the largest music catalog on the Internet, with over seven million titles. It is still a terrific bargain, even though it is no longer free in the days when it was in hot water with the music industry. They offer various plans, but the best all around deal is a three month membership, which can be renewed if you still haven’t satisfied your music thirst. Three months will give you a good sense of what the service has to offer, and I strongly suspect that you’ll decide to renew. A lot of people have maintained a membership for years.
For a remarkably low price, you receive five download credits and special bonus download credits as a subscription bonus. Included in the plan is the reason that most people subscribe in the first place–unlimited (!) streaming music. You can listen to the entire catalogs of your favorite artists or, if you prefer, entire albums of a variety of artists. They have over a thousand pre-made mix lists, and those are interactive. There are streaming radio stations, too.
The downloads you choose can be played on any MP3 compatible device, including a number of lesser know brands plus the extremely popular Ipod and Zune players. A lot of newer cell phones have built in MP3 players and sufficient memory to hold a number of your favorite selections, as well.
You have unrestricted rights to these recordings, so you can move them around to different devices that you own. You can even use your software to create your own CD.
Any musical genre you can think of is well represented. I’m sure you’ll find your favorite on the list, unless you are like me and listen to music from a wide variety of genres. The list is huge, but a few of the genres are jazz, pop, rock, Christian, children, comedy, country and the list goes on….
All of this is just $15 for the three months of delightful musical saturation at Napster.com. Where can you find that much pleasure at that price?
