Bag a free MP3 player with Napster

MSE_Martin

Heads up about Napster free player

Just a quick heads up that from this Saturday 14th, Napster will be giving away free sandisk m230 MP3 players when you sign up for its £14.95 unlimited download package for a minimum of three months.

While it isn't the most competitive package (after all the Cheap Legal Download Hunt shows you how to legally be a 'download tart' and get free tracks from lots of intro offers) it does include a free player likely to be worth around £30.

Be warned though if you get this just for the player and then cancel the service, all the tracks you've downloaded won't then be playable.

I've included the press release below for your information.

Martin

The Napster press release is below for you information
Remember its a press release, a 'sell document', so treat its spin with a pinch of salt.

NAPSTER TO GIVE AWAY FREE MP3 PLAYERS TO NEW SUBSCRIBERS

Free flash devices will allow new Napster To Go subscribers to enjoy their choice
of over 2 million tracks for under £15 a month

LONDON - (September 11, 2006) - Napster UK, Ltd., a subsidiary of Napster, Inc. (Nasdaq: NAPS) is to give away free Napster To Go compatible MP3 players to all new subscribers of its award-winning portable music service. From September 14, 2006, anyone taking out a new 3 month NTG subscription will receive a free 512MB flash device that can store up to 240 tracks at a time. Napster To Go is the world’s first portable music subscription service and allows music fans to fill and refill a compatible MP3 player with their choice of tracks from Napster’s 2 million strong catalogue for just £14.95 a month.

Music fans can get their free MP3 player by signing up at napster.co.uk. The giveaway follows recent research from UK based global audiovisual media analyst Screen Digest that reveals the majority of MP3 players sold in the UK are flash based devices, with a mid price point of between £30 to £99.

“By giving our new subscribers a free Napster MP3 player they can immediately begin enjoying unlimited downloads with Napster To Go and not have to worry about hardware,” said Chris Gorog, Napster’s chairman and CEO. “When music fans subscribe to Napster To Go they will never have to pay £1 per track again and can download and transfer as much music as they want to our free Napster MP3 player.”

“We see a parallel in the UK between the mobile phone industry and the digital music business,” said Leanne Sharman, Napster VP and UK general manager. “The mobile industry is more mature than ours but it began as a pay-as-you-go business reliant on handset sales. Now it’s subscription that drives the business and allows the network carriers to give away new phones. This is the model for the future of the digital music industry where content is king and MP3 players are disposable.”

About Napster
Napster (NASDAQ: NAPS) is committed to making great music experiences more accessible to all music fans. Napster.com gives web users the power to legally listen on-demand to a massive catalog of music from major and independent labels, wherever they are on the Web -- for FREE. The Napster music subscription service offers a premium experience that includes unlimited access to CD-quality music and advanced discovery, community and programming features in an advertising-free environment. Napster To Go subscribers also enjoy unlimited transfer of music to a compatible MP3 player. Napster Light, an a la carte download store, and Napster Mobile, a hosted music service featuring artist images, ring tones and full-length songs, round out the Napster digital music lineup. Napster is headquartered in Los Angeles with sales offices in Frankfurt and London. For more information, please visit www.napster.com.

SafeHarbor Statement
Except for historical information, the matters discussed in this press release, in particular matters related to the parallels between the mobile phone industry and the digital music business contain forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including the new and rapidly evolving nature of digital music services and reliance on third party content that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Additional information on these and other risk factors are contained in Napster's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q as filed with the SEC on August 2, 2006, copies of which are available at the website maintained by the SEC at http://www.sec.gov. Napster assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements included in this press release.

jimmy_mumu

its on thier website now. thanks

evosy1978

if i was to get this mp3 player with 3 months subscription. And then i cancelled it, would i still be able to put my own songs of my computer onto it.

thanks in advance

evosy

belleooo

evosy1978 wrote:

if i was to get this mp3 player with 3 months subscription. And then i cancelled it, would i still be able to put my own songs of my computer onto it.

thanks in advance

evosy

According to the Sandisk website the following files are compatible with the player:

Mp3, WMA, DRM WMA and Audible file formats. Not audio books which are MP3 or WMA format. It also says the FM Tuner is not available in Europe even though Napster are saying it is?

So to answer your question you should still be able to store tunes that are in MP3 or WMA format. The Napster to go songs will dissapear if you stop your subscription. You won't be able to store songs purchased from Itunes because they are in a completly different format. This is my interpretation of it all.

porkupine

According to napster, "It is necessary to maintain a Napster subscription in order to continue access to songs downloaded through the Napster service."

So it seems that, if you end your subscription, you lose all the songs you ever downloaded during it. Farcical, I reckon.

parkside_stroller

porkupine wrote:

According to napster, "It is necessary to maintain a Napster subscription in order to continue access to songs downloaded through the Napster service."

So it seems that, if you end your subscription, you lose all the songs you ever downloaded during it. Farcical, I reckon.

Belleooo, I'm repeating some of the things you posted as well as a bit more.

That is how Napster to Go works - you are basically renting the music. I've subscribed for over a year and I don't find it farcical at all. You just have to get your head round the fact that you are renting the music you are downloading not buying if (unless you choose the purchase track option).

If you cancel your subscription you do lose the right to play the music you have downloaded (works through digital rights management) and you have to plug any portable music player that you are using with Napster into your PC once a month while the programme is open (to update DRM).
You would not lose any music that you have purchased and put onto the music player (or your PC) and you would keep anything that you got from other sources such as mp3 or WMA files that you made from your cds and of course downloads from other services.

Ipod downloads are no good to you as you won't be able to put them on any player other than an ipod (although you can play them on your PC if you have the itunes software).

There are are number of legal download services available and as said before there are often introductory deals on them so if you want to take advantage of this to get a free player while trying the Napster service its a good deal but remember that it is really costing you £45 in fees for music you won't own.
On the other hand if like myself, you appreciate the chance to try music by artists you might not have listened to otherwise, Napster to Go is a good idea. At the end of the day you can always take the player and try another service after 3 months.

some other services run a similar thing where you pay to stream a track - i.e. listen to it without downloading it but with this Napster service you can do that or download to your PC or music player and therefore don't have to be online to listen to your music (useful if you have a download limit on your broadband service that you are in danger of exceeding).

Hope this provides some clarification for people.

dmoore

porkupine wrote:

According to napster, "It is necessary to maintain a Napster subscription in order to continue access to songs downloaded through the Napster service."

So it seems that, if you end your subscription, you lose all the songs you ever downloaded during it. Farcical, I reckon.

Just to add my vote for Napster as well, have subscribed for a year or two now and with a couple of teenage kids its saved a packet on buying cd's that normally just end up gathering dust. for just under a tenner a month (the normal service) its installed on 3 pc's (mine and one each for the kids) so we can listen to what we want including the latest cd's. it's opened up a world of music I didnt know existed so now we all listen to more music than before, so much we rarely bother with tv now so have cut the sky package down to basics, which paid for napster twice over. Oh and the napster radio and cd selections are well cool for background music...

derek

ps. unlike normal cd's, where you are actually paying for a sort of private license to listen to the small selection of music on it for the life of the media, with napster its more of an online library where you can listen to any of millions of tracks whilst subscribing. You can of course buy music as well from napster to burn to cd's etc (napster has built-in cd burning software). i refuse to buy audio cd's as i dont know if i can take backup copies for the car or whether it will open my system to hackers, whereas downloaded music can be copied onto more than one cd and is much safer.

mrme

I'm loving the Napster To Go Service & this is a great deal. £14.99 is the cost of a cd but you can have unlimited tracks with Napster. OK so you don't own them but it works for me. If I really like the Album/track I will buy it but the downloads are great for just one song off an album for example Also you can go through Quicdo for cashback & there are a few free trial codes around (I got a month free!) You can get hold of new releases a lot quicker than in the shops as well if you like to keep up to date