Napster launches world's biggest DRM-free music store

Napster says it has launched "the world's largest and most comprehensive MP3 store at www.napster.com/store"

Pricing for download sales will remain at 99 cents for single MP3 tracks and $9.95 for most MP3 albums, Napster confirmed. The vast majority of the MP3 catalog, including all major label content, is available at a high-quality 256kbps bitrate, and downloaded tracks include high-resolution album art. Consumers can visit and browse the download store with no obligation or commitment, and can also choose to subscribe to Napster's on-demand streaming service, which is web-based and can be accessed from any Internet-connected computer without downloading software.

Napster is certainly a well-known name: it dominated the music download landscape (with peer-to-peer file sharing) before Apple launched the iPod, and years before the iTunes Store. Whether it can compete with Amazon's existing DRM-free MP3 download service is another matter.

Amazon is already offering better-than-iTunes quality for less-than-iTunes prices without iTunes's proprietary DRM (Digital Rights Management) software. The fact that millions of existing Amazon users (but in the US only) can buy downloads using their current account details also makes it the obvious first choice for more-aware consumers. Napster still has to get people to sign up, which is a significant barrier.

On the UK site, Napster Light is offering the chance to "Buy tracks for 79p and albums from £7.95" which traditionally requires you to run Napster.exe, a Windows-only download (11MB for UK users. No, I didn't install it).