Napster burgled

Napster (that's the legit, record-label-friendly version - not the all-you-can-eat, totally illegal outfit from the late 90s) is betting big bucks that its music subscription service will be just the ticket to eat into Apple's massive market share with iTunes.

For $15 a month (or stg£15), Napster To Go gives US/UK users access to every single song in its one-million-strong catalogue, plus with a recent-model portable MP3 player you could take these songs on the road. Sounds terrific but the caveat is that if you stop paying the subscription, the music downloaded to your hard drive or MP3 player won't work any more.

Not everyone agrees that music subscription has a future and a report on Reuters points out that, with a little bit of software ingenuity, users can rescue songs from copy-protection hell and never worry about when their subscription lapses.

This sort of thing is already possible with established services such as iTunes (bypassing copy protection is as easy as burning songs to CD and then ripping them into MP3, at the expense of audio quality).

But the difference with Napster To Go is that you have instant access to every song, so you could download thousands in the first month of your subscription, de-fang them and keep 'em forever.

This is all academic for Irish users because, despite promises, Napster still hasn't set up shop in Ireland yet.