The biggest threat to itunes is now live (from: Pete Wright’s Radio Weblog)
http://radio.weblogs.com/0137893/2005/02/04.html#a244 | Comments
…and surprisingly it’s not a service owned by Microsoft. Last Friday Napster-to -go went live offering what is potentially the biggest threat so far to Apple’s dominance of the online legal downloads market.
For just $15 a month subscribers got to download an unlimited amount of music, the catch being that as soon as you stop subscribing, the music stops too. This particular trick comes courtesy of Microsoft’s Janus digital rights management system which periodically connects to an assets license provider to confirm whether or not the license is still valid.
Portable music devices are supported by the new service, unless of course you own an ipod. Napster are also being a little quiet at the moment with respect to which music labels they have signed into. the service, and how those labels get paid (Apple have a vast collection of labels and payment happens pretty much the same way it does in the high street.
Napsters service does look compelling though -definitely one to watch.