Napster To Go (NTG) aims to provide a solution to the problem faced by music subscription services in their ability to transfer songs onto portable players, by using Microsoft’s Windows Media 10 technology to enable songs to be transferred to a compatible music player with their DRM data intact.
In response to Apple’s iPod, which charges $1 for every song transferred, Napster will offer a pay-per-month scheme priced at $15 a month. The initiative is a step forward for the company, who until recently were charging a subscription fee plus an additional fee for every transferred song.
Napster will spend $30m on promoting the scheme in a bid to improve upon subscriber figures of 270,000 at the end of last year and compete against Apple iTunes, which has sold 230 million songs and 10 million iPods. The advertising campaign is set to debut during Sunday’s Super Bowl.
