Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Features, Reviews
TUAW Review: Napster MP3 store
As we noted yesterday, Napster has now rolled out the world's largest DRM-free MP3 store. In the spirit of the Amazon MP3 review we ran last year, I thought I would take Napster for a spin to see how the service works from a Mac-user's perspective. The first thing to note is that this is a download service. While Napster continues to run its subscription-based service (with downloads limited to Windows computers with Microsoft DRM), you do not need a subscription to purchase MP3s from the Napster Store (though you need an account, of course). Once downloaded the files are just straight 256kbps MP3s that should play without problem on any of a variety of devices. With that in mind, let's have a look at the Napster experience.
AOL's Music Now, yet another iTunes Store competitor, has announced they are closing their doors in favor of lending the space to Napster (disclosure reminder: we're an AOL property). In a 
Forget the 
Do you remember
when Napster was huge (about ten years ago), and digital file sharing was on everyone's minds? Metallica and The Red Hot
Chili Peppers were sort of leading the anti-p2p charge. Several years later, when the iTunes Music Store demonstrated
that the online distribution of music could be accomplished successfully, the Peppers refused to participate, stating
that (among other things), they didn't like that customers were able to purchase individual tracks, as it interrupted
the flow of the album, or some other artsy thing like that.
Napster's
CEO, Chris Gorog, has 
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
