Digital Jukebox

Napster pre-paid cards the first of their kind

Roxio's online music service, Napster, is to become the first in the UK to offer pre-paid cards in shops for buying digital music downloads. The cards, which are being sold through the Dixons Group stores (Dixons, Currys, The Link and PC World), are similar to pre-pay cards on phones. Each card contains a unique code that users enter on the online store in order to buy tracks. The cards can also be redeemed against subscription costs. They will cost £14.95 for 15 tracks, £56.95 for 60 tracks and £25.95 for a 3-month subscription. That should make buying Christmas presents that little bit easier this year. The cards will be in store from November.

Napster

UK's first downloads chart

The singles chart in the UK maybe looking increasingly sickly, but, as we all know, the world of online music downloads is fighting fit and growing stronger by the day. And, unsurprisingly, radio is beginning to want a piece of the action.

Virgin Radio is launching the nation’s first online music chart, to be broadcast from Sunday 29th August at 7pm. The sales figures that make up the music chart are being taken from Napster, with a countdown of the top 20 tracks sold on Napster’s online store.

The chart will register full-length live streams and downloads made on subscription, as well as permanent downloads. It’ll be interesting to see how music downloads differ from normal single sales. We predict more goth tunes making the top 20, since goths don’t like to go out in the sunlight too much. Virgin radio certainly thinks (hopes) so – it’s giving away a day with Robert Smith of The Cure as a promo for the countdown. Plus, it won’t really fit with Virgin’s demographic if it turns out that online shoppers are downloading Busted and Rachel Stevens tunes.

Are music files the new plastic toy?

We’re getting the feeling that it may not be so long before we’re all collecting the tokens on the back of cereal packs to get free music downloads. Why giveaway Le Creuset pans and mugs with cockerels on them, when what the public wants is the latest Kylie MP3?

The signs are already there. McDonalds and Sony appear to be teaming up to offer hungry customers free music downloads with their meals (although, no one at McDs or Sony is saying anything just yet), while London newspaper,The Evening Standard , is offering readers free tracks via Wippit .

It’s quite a strange deal, though. Readers have to buy two copies of the paper to get two passwords and then get a web address from the Tuesday edition. Once they’ve gone to all that trouble, they finally get their 10 free tracks, chosen from a set list of just 50.

The Sun newspaper has a similar deal with Napster throughout the summer, while The Guardian got there first with its deal with EMI that allowed readers to download EMI artists appearing at Glastonbury. Unlike the Evening Standard, The Sun offer allows readers to pick from the full 750,000 track Napster playlist.

So how long will it be before you’re getting free tracks in every pack of Walkers crisps, or getting Napster points on your credit and loyalty cards? Surely it can’t be far away. But there’s no mention yet of who Apple might be pairing up with. The initial rumour was that Apple and McDonalds were doing a deal, but it sounds like Sony pipped Apple to the post (and who ever heard of getting free Apples in McDonalds… sorry that was a pretty rotten Apple joke... and so was that one).

A Pepsi ring pull giveaway with iTunes apparently didn’t go down as well as expected in the States, but maybe they’d have more luck if they tried it with Tetley teabags over here in the UK.

UK music download review

Downloading music in the UK is a real nightmare at the moment. There are several competing services, which boast different tracks that are compatible with different players and charge for music in different ways.

The Guardian attempts to make some sense of it all by giving a whizz to iTunes, Napster, SonicStage and Sony’s upcoming Connect service.

Click here or read on to get the whole story

Apple's iTunes grabbed the headlines last week, but legitimate music downloads have been available in the UK for some time. Peter Gabriel's OD2 group launched last year, and a few weeks ago saw the UK arrival of Napster.
There's more to come, with Sony's Connect service slated to arrive at the end of the month and groups such as Wal-Mart, owner of Asda stores, eyeing a European launch for its downloads.

Here's our verdict on the download services that have launched in the UK.

Napster
www.napster.co.uk
The legitimate version of the service that kickstarted music downloads has more than 500,000 tracks to stream or download in the Windows Media Audio (WMA) format.

It is available in two forms. For serious music fans, there's a subscription of £9.95 per month. Users can stream or download to a PC as many tracks as they want. They can then export the tunes to a CD player or a WMA-equipped music player (Creative/Rio players are compatible and Philips models will be soon) for a further 99p or more per track.

The alternative is Napster Light. Just download tunes at a rather pricey £1.09 a throw. Albums can be a ripoff though, with some selling for over £20!

The interface, which is fairly straightforward, perhaps as a nod to its pioneering pirate days, is reminiscent of peer-to-peer service KaZaA. Overall, the service is simple to use and the choice of compatible players is a bonus.

Moz watch:
The only service to offer Morrissey's new album You Are the Quarry. Shame it costs £19.90.

Sonic Selector (MSN)
www.sonicselector.com
Recently revamped, Sonic Selector is available via a host of companies including MSN, Tiscali, Packard Bell and MTV. The MSN version boasts a fairly large library of 350,000 tracks and, as it is European in origin (the service is hosted by OD2), there's a strong bias towards British artists.

Users can hear a snippet of a track free or pay around 75p to download it to their PC. They can also stream any track for a very reasonable 1p a shot.

The software downloads quickly and meshes neatly with Windows Media player version 9. A recommendation system tracks your choices and then makes suggestions as to what you might like next. Not quite sure how it got Mariah Carey for me, though.

The tracks are downloaded in WMA and are compatible with many digital audio players. The most annoying part is the high price of albums. Unlike iTunes, where whole CDs can be bought for under £10, albums with 15 or more tracks can work out costing the best part of £20.

Moz watch: A good selection of the great man's albums, though sadly not his new one. His debut, Viva Hate, costs £19.80 to download.

iTunes
www.apple.com/uk
It might be Europe's biggest music download service, with more than 700,000 tracks just a click away, but from a UK perspective, iTunes isn't necessarily the most comprehensive. That's because the group representing smaller labels, and artists such as the White Stripes, Dizzee Rascal and hundreds of other cutting-edge acts, have yet to sign on the dotted line. Still, if you like your music mainstream and largely American, iTunes fits the bill. It is also the only one that works with Apple Macs.

Tracks are competitively priced - 79p per song and from £7.99 per album (not much less than you'll pay an online retailer for a CD). However, Apple hasn't been too generous with streaming options. There's no free or cheap streaming. Instead, you can only hear a 30-second snippet.

The tracks are in the good quality Advanced Acoustic Coding (AAC) format and are easily stored on a Mac/PC and transferred to an iPod (they aren't compatible with other players). There is, however, a good chance that other music players, and even Nokia phones, will soon be able to accommodate AAC downloads.

Weaknesses include the fact that iTunes is a 20MB file, which will take some time to download if you are on slower connection. The interface is quite clunky compared with some rivals, too.

While it isn't the service for everyone, iTunes looks certain to be the frontrunner in UK music downloads.

Moz watch:
Morrissey who? Only a couple of Smiths albums.

MyCokeMusic
www.mycokemusic.com
With its funky, in-your-face graphics, MyCokeMusic is aimed at a younger audience. This is reflected in an even stronger emphasis on individual tracks, rather than albums, and the higher profile of dance music on its website.

As with MSN (both are operated by OD2), it costs 1p to stream a track and 80p on average per download. Like other OD2 sites, downloading music involves buying credits that are debited each time you stream/download. Users can also pay via SMS, with the cost added to their phone bill.

Moz watch: see SonicSelector

Wippit www.wippit.com
The underdog of the UK download market, Wippit has just 60,000 tracks from around 200 record labels (though it does include a few biggies in EMI and BMG).

There are plenty of ways to buy, ranging from one-off payments, usually around 80p, to a yearly unlimited download deal for a competitive £50.

Tracks are mainly available in WMA, although there are still a few MP3s lurking.

Overall, it is an easy-to-use service and the yearly download deal is incredible value. It needs more record companies on board and a higher profile to be a real contender, though.

Moz watch: A solid selection of the Mancunian bard's back catalogue.

Sony Connect www.connect.com

Launched in the US a few months ago and scheduled to arrive in Europe any day, Sony's service will feature 300,000 tracks from the big five plus a healthy selection of indie labels.

Tracks, which sell for 79p, will have excellent sound as they will be encoded in Sony's proprietary Atrac 3 format at 132Kbps. The downside is they can only be ported on to Atrac 3 devices manufactured by Sony.

The US version of the site has been criticised for lacking community features, such as seeing what other people are buying.

Caveat emptor
You might be tempted to go on a shopping spree, but a mess of incompatible technologies could give you more than you bargained for. When you buy a CD you know your music is playable on any device. But in the online world, where files can be copied with ease, the record companies have insisted on strong anti-piracy technology.

Known as Digital Rights Management (DRM), the technology restricts how you listen to your music. Tracks purchased from Apple's iTunes store, use the company's FairPlay DRM. It gives you the right to play your music on up to five computers and burn the same playlist to a CD seven times. According to critics, however, it's a technical solution to the wrong problem, preventing sharing when labels should only really be concerned with making sure artists are paid.

DRM is also being used to lock customers into proprietary hardware and software. Tracks downloaded from iTunes cannot be played on portable players other than the iPod. Apple argues this is no big deal as the iPod is, by far, the most popular portable player. But the company has made no effort to allow the iPod to play music purchased from rival music stores. Apple's chief executive has made it clear he won't change while rivals fall short of 50% market share. Rivals typically use Windows Media DRM, which Microsoft openly licenses. The result is that music purchased from Napster and stores using Peter Gabriel's OD2 service (mycokemusic.com, HMV, Virgin etc) can be played on more than 60 portable devices - except the iPod.

"The iTunes store in the States is the market leader," says Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research, because "there's no portable player using Microsoft DRM that's anywhere near as good as the iPod."

Sony's Connect service will only be compatible with its MiniDisc players. The lack of a common standard is prompting calls for a standards revolution. Leonardo Chiariglione, founder of the MPeg video standard, believes the IT industry has much to learn from the world of consumer electronics.

"The battle between Apple and Microsoft is no different from the VHS versus Betamax one," he says. "The experience there taught us that what prevails is a technology that provides interoperability for consumers." The Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA) - of which Apple is a part - has developed a blueprint for an open-standards DRM. But, according to Michael Gartenberg: "As long as the iPod is as successful as it is, there's little incentive for Apple to adopt standards."

It's clear we're going to have to live with incompatible DRM technologies. So before you start building a massive collection of songs, consider exactly how and where you're going to be able to listen to them - years down the line.

Napster UK gets thumbs up

The first few reviews of Napster's new music download are starting to arrive, and surprise, surprise, they have on the whole been rather positive.

The Guardian's Neil McIntosh in particular reckons 'If you have a PC and broadband, this could be a very good pick indeed.'

Click here or simply read on for Neil's review

Napster unveiled its new service for the UK last week - and it is likely to tempt a few music fans to give digital music a go. While the old Napster helped kick-start net music piracy back in 1999, the new version is legal, offering more than 500,000 tracks for live streaming or download.

Unlike rival services, the new Napster doesn't just sell you tracks for a one-off price. It also offers a subscription option; for £9.95 a month you can get unlimited streams, or "tethered downloads", of the service's catalogue, which means if you stop your subscription, the tracks stop playing.

To burn tracks to CD, or transfer to portable music devices, you have to pay extra. Despite that, Online's first go with the new service suggests it is the new front-runner in music services - and even the expected arrival of the iTunes Music Store later this year will struggle to shake that.

The killer feature is that subscription encourages you to browse around the more esoteric corners of the catalogue - just as the old Napster did. If you have a PC and broadband, this could be a very good pick indeed.
www.napster.co.uk