{"id":3027,"date":"2005-07-15T14:58:05","date_gmt":"2005-07-15T18:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/2005\/07\/15\/clarifying-rochesters-napster-number"},"modified":"2005-07-15T14:58:05","modified_gmt":"2005-07-15T18:58:05","slug":"clarifying-rochesters-napster-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/2005\/07\/15\/clarifying-rochesters-napster-numbers\/","title":{"rendered":"Clarifying Rochester’s Napster Numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

I think people have<\/a> misunderstood<\/a> reports on<\/a> the University of Rochester’s survey<\/a> of on-campus Napster 2.0 Unlimited usage.<\/p>\n

Rochester students’ use of iTunes shouldn’t necessarily be seen as
\nreplacing free Napster Unlimited usage.  That’s an unfair
\ncomparison. iTunes
\nsells permament downloads. Rochester students only get subsidized
\naccess to Napster Unlimited, the
\nunlimited streaming and tethered download service. That’s not an
\nadequate replacement for most people, because you don’t get to keep the
\nsongs and you can’t move them to portable players.  For Napster To
\nGo,
\nthey have to pay an extra 5 bucks per month.  Thus, Rochester’s
\nNapster Unlimited subscription, rather than a replacement for typical
\npurchasing habits, is more of a complement to them.<\/p>\n

Students certainly have used what they get for free.  As The
\nRegister reports, “To Napster’s credit, University of Rochester
\nstudents do embrace the
\nstreaming and tethered download aspects of the service. A healthy 47
\nper cent of students added a song they liked to their streaming
\nplaylist, while another 39 per cent acquired a tethered
\ndownload.”  What we don’t know, and what’s really important, is
\nwhether and how frequently the students use the service over time.<\/p>\n

What they’re certainly not doing is buying permanent downloads from
\nNapster.  And why would they?  Apple has a bigger catalog and
\nbasically everything available in Napster is available there. 
\niTunes software is superior.  Apple downloads are compatible with
\nthe iPod, and the DRM is relatively
\neasy to evade (by burning to CD and ripping) or circumvent (via JusteTune<\/a>). 
\nNapster’s price discount for “track packs” is irrelevant, partly because they’re
\ncumbersome and partly because they’re advertised so poorly.<\/p>\n

Nothing about Rochester students going to iTunes suggests they choose
\nit instead of the Napster 2.0 subscription.  It just means they’re
\nonly using Napster Unlimited for what it is: a complement to
\npurchasing.  <\/p>\n

One might wonder why the students aren’t taking to the dirt cheap To Go
\nsubscription rate, but there are many fairly obvious answers.  For
\none, hardly any portable players – most notably the iPod, but also most
\nothers – don’t work with it.  Second, most consumers are still
\nfairly uncomfortable with the rental model – that’s going to take time.
\nIf To Go were free as well, Rochester students might be more willing to
\ngive it a go.  Third and related, students might find it more
\nworthwhile to pocket that extra 5 bucks per month and put it towards
\npermanent downloads.  They might use Unlimited to search for stuff
\nthey want to buy, and there’s a trade-off if they spend more on the
\nsubscription service.<\/p>\n

As far as what this means regarding the success of campus subscription
\nplans, I don’t think we have the data to understand that. E.g., are the
\nstudents buying more now?
\ndecreasing P2P usage? how frequently are they using Napster?  The survey <\/a>doesn’t really cover those in a rigorous way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think people have misunderstood reports on the University of Rochester’s survey of on-campus Napster 2.0 Unlimited usage. Rochester students’ use of iTunes shouldn’t necessarily be seen as replacing free Napster Unlimited usage.  That’s an unfair comparison. iTunes sells permament downloads. Rochester students only get subsidized access to Napster Unlimited, the unlimited streaming and tethered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3027\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}