Napster: Clunky but Chunky

Today, May 20, Napster made available a big 6 million tracks, sans rights management protection, which unquestionably eclipses iTunes Music Store's DRM-free library and supposedly Amazon.com's AmazonMP3 store. But how does the Napster experience compare to iTunes? I decided to find out.

First, some context: In October, I went through the painful exercise of excising all the FairPlay-protected tracks from my music library. Amazon's huge DRM-free catalog meant liberation from the iPod and gaining the ability to play music on anything, but not without sacrifice. Over four years, I had amassed more than 2,500 DRM-protected tracks from iTunes (mostly as albums). The process of removing iTunes-purchased content reduced my library from more than 6,000 tracks to around 4,000. Many albums wouldn't be available through AmazonMP3 for months; many still aren't.

Since October, Amazon's music store has been my primary source of digital music downloads, with iTunes taking a largely diminished secondary role. DRM freedom means music portability on most any device. To my ears, Amazon's 256K-bps encoding is good enough. The source is superconvenient; I simply don't have time to shop for CDs.

Portion of the main Napster store page

As a DRM-free connoisseur, Napster's big library claims really appealed to me. I started by going to the Napster site, only to find that Safari isn't supported. Ah, OK. So, I used Firefox instead. I wondered: Do I still have an account? I opened one years ago to test Microsoft's PlaysForSure DRM. Sure enough, I logged in from the Web browser without trouble. The credit card had expired, so I switched to PayPal, which I prefer anyway.

As the screenshots indicate, Napster provides similar presentation in the browser to what it might offer in its software, which, sadly, is Windows only. I started by searching for the Sum 41 album "Chuck," one excised from my library during the great FairPlay purge but not available from AmazonMP3. Now, why is that? Amazon offers other Sum 41 albums, but not that one. "Chuck" is published by the Island Def Jam Music Group, same as most of the band's other albums.

Sure enough, Napster had the album available for download, an experience I will recount in a few paragraphs. Next, I looked for Hoobastank, for which AmazonMP3 has the self-titled 2001 album. Napster had three albums, including "The Reason," which I purchased.

Napster has Sum 41 album 'Chuck' that AmazonMP3 doesn't

Next up, Dido, whose "No Angel" is the only album from AmazonMP3. The iTunes Music Store offers much better selection, wrapped in FairPlay, with a live EP and "Life for Rent" among the choices. I have a double-album version of "No Angel" from iTunes that is no longer available (DRM, of course). I've long wanted a DRM-free version. Amazon sells the CD for 25 bucks. So, it was with great trepidation that I searched Napster for Dido and with great disappointment that I found only "No Angel."

Two for three meant searching for more music. The Foo Fighters album "One by One" hadn't been available from AmazonMP3, and I've checked every Tuesday for months. Before checking Napster, I searched Amazon expecting to find no album. But it's there. Whoa, and unexpectedly. Napster didn't have "One by One." Uh-oh.

I randomly picked other bands whose content AmazonMP3 carried. Lucky Boys Confusion: one album at Napster, three at Amazon. And so on. I found the Napster selection to be a mixed bag, but still somewhat better than AmazonMP3.

Buyers must take whole albums, but download track by track

On a whim, I checked for The Ting Tings album "We Started Nothing" that I purchased from AmazonMP3 earlier in the day. Crap, Napster had the album for $7.99, compared with Amazon's $9.90. WTH? That one missed savings aside, Napster is a take-more, pay-more service. Most of the albums I searched for cost 4 cents less than from iTunes or $1 or more than from AmazonMP3. But that's not the big expense. In my testing in a browser on a Mac, Napster offers album-only DRM-free tracks. There's no option to buy single tracks, an option Amazon and Apple both offer. Slightly bigger DRM-free selection is a lot less interesting if the buyer can choose only albums and not select tracks.

That's good segue to get to the purchase and downloading experience, which is so clunky I'd almost rate the old file-sharing Napster service as being better. Did I say that? Everyone knows that nobody ever used the old, illegal Napster. : ) I can say that I bought all my current library of music, either on CD or as digital downloads.

While mandating full-album purchases, Napster doesn't provide album downloads as an option—at least in Firefox on the Mac. Tracks must be downloaded one by one and individually saved in the browser. It's a real pain in the ass. At least iTunes automatically imports the Napster tracks (because the default option is to play rather than save to disk).

Some Napster tracks are available to rent (Windows only), but not to buy

The iTunes Music Store offers a decidedly more integrated experience. Napster's download option, without the Windows software, is a repetitive clicking process. Amazon's approach falls short of Apple's, but it's a whole lot better than Napster's. Buyers must download the Amazon MP3 Player software, which thereafter launches when a purchase is made. Tracks automatically load into the music library and appear in iTunes. I find the Amazon process to be a pretty acceptable compromise.

As for Napster, the selection definitely impresses, even with shortcomings, but the buying experience is no iTunes. That said, DRM-free is the future. If it's between iTunes and Napster, I would choose Napster for the larger DRM-free selection. But I'll keep AmazonMP3 as my steady for now.

Posted by Joe Wilcox on May 20, 2008 6:55 PM