Lounge of Tomorrow - This should be interesting

I did a little research (out of curiosity). Here's what I found:

Expanding on what CP said, another way to look at it is: with iTunes, you BUY the songs (just like we used to when we purchased a 45 record). With Napster TO GO, you are renting the music (like selecting to play a song on a juke box - except in this case you are paying a monthly subscription to listen to all the songs on the jukebox as often as you want) and can only play it on certain MP3 players. Without getting into major code-writing, you cannot burn an MP3 rented from Napster To Go onto a CD. You have to use a client downloaded from Napster to manage putting songs onto your MP3 player.

From one story I read on the topic:

Quote:

Napster to Go uses Microsoft Corp.'s Janus digital rights management technology, which can signal compatible player devices if a subscriber's account has lapsed. If it has, the music goes away.

Note that Napster DOES have the ability to PURCHASE music. However, they still charge a monthly subscription fee just to use their service, then you have to pay to buy the music.

Without getting into a side-by-side comparison, it looks as though iTunes and Napster have the same basic song lists.

One other comparison: Napster uses MP3 technology while iTunes uses AAC technology. AAC is a MUCH better (and lossless) compression technology with a much better sound than MP3. While I will note that I am a HUGE fan of Apple, this opinion is shared by many educated music and audio technology aficionados and professionals, regardless of "platform preference. (Also, you can choose to encode your tracks to MP3 if you prefer.)