Reuters
May 26, 2004, 5:31 PM PT
Online music provider Napster, which transformed itself from a pioneering song-swap Web site to a pay-for-use service, said on Wednesday it has launched a Canadian version of its operation.
Napster, a division of software maker Roxio, said it will offer its music subscription service and an Internet music store at www.napster.ca. As part of the launch, it is offering a free seven-day trial of service.
The subscription service will cost $9.95 Canadian ($7.26) a month and let users listen to an unlimited number of songs. The store will sell individual songs to burn to CD or transfer to portable players for $1.19 Canadian each, or $9.95 Canadian per album.
Napster said the site will offer Canadian music fans access to more than 300,000 tracks from record labels including BMG, EMI, Sony Music Canada, Universal Music Canada and Warner Music Canada.
As part of the launch, Napster struck a marketing alliance with Montreal-based Molson, the country’s oldest brewer.
The service will compete directly with Puretracks.com, a closely held pay-as-you-go music download store launched in October that has already sold one million songs.
Puretracks differentiated itself from similar U.S.-based music services by charging in local currency and providing a wide selection of Canadian musicians. It sells many individual songs for 99 Canadian cents.
Both Napster and Puretracks will have to contend with free file-sharing sites such as Kazaa.com.
File-sharing received a boost in March when a Canadian court ruled people who swap songs on the Internet in Canada can remain anonymous. The Federal Court of Canada rejected a request from the country’s biggest music producers that it order Internet service providers to identify music swappers.
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