Napster moved to transform itself again on Monday. The digital-music company slashed the price of its online streaming music service to less than half price.
Napster now charges $5 a month for unlimited access to its streaming-music service, down from $12.95. The company also sweetened the deal by giving members five unrestricted MP3 downloads a month in an effort to woo music lovers from Apple’s iTunes Store.
“A decade ago, Napster revolutionized the way people discovered and enjoyed music,” said Julie Owen, senior vice president of entertainment for Best Buy. “The brand that started it all is shaking things up again with this new service that provides music lovers continued access to the entertainment experience they’ve come to expect of Napster and Best Buy.”
Napster’s Checkered Past
Many remember Napster as the controversial music-sharing service launched in 1999. The technology let music fans copy and share MP3 files with each other, and quickly ran into lawsuits from copyright holders. Napster’s original model was shut down by the courts, but the company stands as a pioneer in peer-to-peer distribution sites.
Adult-entertainment company Private Media Group bought Napster for $2.43 million in 2002, but couldn’t keep the brand from going bankrupt. Next, Roxio acquired the rights to Napster’s logos and branding and relaunched the service as Napster 2.0. Finally, last September Best Buy purchased the Internet property for $121 million.
Today, Napster has a catalog of more than seven million tracks. It also offers personalized recommendation tools that let its members discover new music and artists and listen to top hits from more than 50 years of the Billboard charts. Members can listen to their tracks on any compatible player, including iPods, iPhones and music-enabled mobile phones.
An Ironic Evolution
“The irony here is that if Napster had done this 10 years ago, they probably could have saved…