San Francisco - Napster, the online music site that first popularized free music over the net, launched on Tuesday what it called the world's largest online music store without digital rights management. But fans of original Napster may be disappointed. Though the music available will play on any MP-compatible device, it also costs 99 cents a track.
More than 6 million tracks will be sold as MP3 files, and will compete directly with a similar service from Amazon, the only other online store with MP3s from all the major labels, and Apple's iTunes, which offers a limited number of DRM-free tracks but still controls 70 per cent of the US market for online music and is considered the biggest music retailer in the country.
"It's great that we have finally gotten here," said Chris Gorog, Napster's chairman and chief executive. "It is really the beginning of a level playing field, which I think is essential for Napster, but also for the health of the digital music business in general."
Napster continues to offer its subscription model which allows users to listen to an unlimited amount of songs for a low monthly fee.
Napster was the first widely-used peer-to-peer file sharing system and was active from 1999 until it was shut down by court order in July 2001. It declared bankruptcy in 2002 and its brand and logo were acquired by rival Roxio in 2002.
