That is, of course, you subscribe to the music service for $12.95 a month. But if you do, or will, different music genres can be selected for your listening pleasure and streamed to the boombox over WiFi or a wired connection. Exciting.

Logitech Squeezebox Adds Music from Napster

FREMONT, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Logitech (SIX:LOGN) (NASDAQ:LOGI) today announced that Logitech® Squeezebox™ network music players support online music from the award-winning music subscription service Napster®. Using your existing wireless home network and your Squeezebox player, now you can access Napster’s library of more than 7 million songs on the home-entertainment system in your living room, bedroom, or in any room where you listen to music.

“Logitech is delighted to add Napster to its family of online music services for the Squeezebox product line,” said Robin Selden, vice president of the Logitech Streaming Media group. “The Logitech Squeezebox is a Wi-Fi device, so you don’t have to string wires everywhere just to enjoy Napster away from the computer. Whether you love rap or reggae, Beethoven or classic rock, Napster and Squeezebox make it easy to listen to a world of music, streamed to any room in your home.”

Napster can deliver music, on-demand, through any Logitech Squeezebox network music player. Using Napster, you can choose from millions of songs from all major labels and thousands of independent labels, discovering old favorites and exploring new music from Napster’s playlists, new releases and Billboard charts.

“Napster, a pioneer of digital music, has always offered the ultimate in interactive music experiences, creating better ways to discover, share, acquire and enjoy music,” said Napster President Brad Duea. “Online music is growing more popular every day, and the link between Napster and a Logitech Squeezebox is a natural one. Together, Napster and Logitech are harnessing the potential of the digital world for music lovers everywhere.”

Napster is available for a free 30-day trial period to Logitech Squeezebox owners in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Germany. After 30 days, Napster is available for $12.95 per month (U.S.). More details can be found at www.logitechsqueezebox.com/napster or www.napster.com/squeezebox.

About Logitech

Logitech is a world leader in personal peripherals, driving innovation in PC navigation, Internet communications, digital music, home-entertainment control, gaming and wireless devices. Founded in 1981, Logitech International is a Swiss public company listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange (LOGN) and on the Nasdaq Global Select Market (LOGI).

Logitech, the Logitech logo, and other Logitech marks are registered in Switzerland and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. For more information about Logitech and its products, visit the Company’s Web site at www.logitech.com.

Best Buy will be acquiring Napster for around $121 million as the two companies have announced they’ve “entered into a definitive merger agreement” for Best Buy to scoop up all of Napster’s outstanding shares at $2.65. The deal will include all 700,000 Napster subscribers, Napster’s web-based platform, and key employees.

Best Buy already has a digital music initiative that’s powered by Rhapsody, so it’ll remain to be seen what happens with that. I’m guessing the company might just switch those users over to the new platform. We may also see Best Buy further develop its house brand of Insignia digital music players, possibly with some sort of package deals including Napster service.

Full release:

Best Buy to Acquire Napster

MINNEAPOLIS & LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE:BBY) and Napster Inc. (NASDAQ:NAPS) announced today that the two companies have entered into a definitive merger agreement for Best Buy to commence a tender offer for all outstanding Napster shares at a price of $2.65 per share in cash. The transaction, with an aggregate purchase price of approximately $121 million (or $54 million net of approximately $67 million in cash and short term investments of Napster as of June 30, 2008), is subject to customary closing conditions, including the tender of a number of Napster shares that constitutes a majority of Napster’s outstanding shares of common stock (on a fully-diluted basis). The transaction is expected to close during the fourth calendar quarter. The transaction has been unanimously approved by the board of directors of Napster, and Napster’s directors and executive officers have agreed, in their capacities as stockholders, to tender their Napster shares and otherwise support the transaction.

The proposed acquisition includes Napster’s approximately 700,000 digital entertainment subscribers, its Web-based customer service platform, and innovative mobile capabilities. In conjunction with the definitive merger agreement, Napster CEO Chris Gorog and key members of senior management of Napster have entered into employment agreements, effective at closing, pursuant to which they have agreed to continue as the Napster leadership post-acquisition.

Best Buy believes that Napster has one of the most comprehensive and easy-to-use music offerings in the industry, including streaming music, music subscriptions, the ability to purchase individual tracks, albums and mobile offers. Napster has approximately 140 employees, with its headquarters in Los Angeles. At this time, Best Buy does not plan to relocate Napster’s headquarters or to make significant changes in personnel.

“This transaction offers Best Buy a recognized platform for enhancing our capabilities in the digital media space and building new, recurring relationships with customers,” said Brian Dunn, President and COO of Best Buy. “Over time we hope to strengthen our offerings to consumers, who we believe will increasingly seek devices and solutions that enable them to access their content wherever, whenever and however they want.”

Best Buy intends to use Napster’s capabilities and digital subscriber base to reach new customers with an enhanced experience for exploring and selecting music and other digital entertainment products over an increasing array of devices. Best Buy believes the combined capabilities of the two companies will allow it to build stronger relationships with customers, expand the number of subscribers, and capture recurring revenue by offering ongoing value over a mobile digital platform.

“We believe Napster brings us excellent capabilities in the mobility space, as well as international operations and an established team of technology experts,” said Dave Morrish, Executive Vice President – Connected Digital Solutions of Best Buy. “We can foresee Napster acting as a platform for accelerating our growth in the emerging industry of digital entertainment, beyond music subscriptions. We’re very excited to add these capabilities to leverage our existing relationships with the labels, the studios, and the hardware providers. We believe Napster will be an outstanding addition to our already robust portfolio of partners and offerings in the digital music space.”

“We believe Best Buy will be an ideal partner for Napster and are very excited by the benefits that this transaction delivers to our shareholders, partners and employees. Best Buy is uniquely positioned to benefit from Napster’s digital entertainment distribution platform. We are looking forward to combining our digital media capabilities with Best Buy’s resources and global network to extend our digital content platforms,” said Chris Gorog, chairman and CEO of Napster.

Under the terms of the definitive merger agreement, Best Buy will commence a cash tender offer to purchase all of the outstanding shares of Napster common stock for $2.65 per share in cash, with a supporting recommendation from the Napster Board of Directors. The closing of the tender offer is subject to customary terms and conditions, including the tender of a number of shares that constitutes a majority of Napster’s outstanding shares of common stock (on a fully diluted basis) and expiration or termination of the waiting period under the Hart Scott Rodino Antitrust Improvement Act. The agreement also provides for the parties to effect, subject to customary conditions, a merger to be completed following the completion of the tender offer which would result in all shares not tendered in the tender offer (other than shares held by Best Buy, treasury shares, and shares held by Napster shareholders, if any, who properly exercise appraisal rights) being converted into the right to receive $2.65 per share in cash. The directors and certain officers of Napster have entered into agreements with Best Buy pursuant to which they have agreed to tender their shares in connection with the tender offer contemplated by the merger agreement and otherwise support the transaction.

Napster, which recently launched one of the world’s largest MP3 stores, had fiscal 2008 revenue of $127.5 million, an increase of 15 percent over the prior fiscal year; a loss of $16.5 million, an improvement compared with a loss of $36.8 million the prior fiscal year; and positive cash flow for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2008.

Best Buy intends to complete the acquisition using available cash. UBS Investment Bank served as the exclusive financial advisor to Napster, and Napster is represented by O’Melveny & Myers LLP. Best Buy is represented by Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P.

Napster’s had it up to here (pointing near the top of my head) and wants to regain its position as the King of Online Music. The new Napster web store opened its doors today and features six million DRM-free tracks, most for 99 cents apiece and most full albums for $9.99, according to Reuters. You can still opt for subscription pricing at around $15 per month if you have a Napster-to-Go compatible portable player.

With this new DRM-free structure, Napster hopes to win away fans of Apple’s iTunes, which also sells certain DRM-free tracks, although many other tracks use Fairplay DRM and can only be used on Apple iPod and iPhone devices (unless you burn the tracks to a CD and then rip them back into iTunes as unprotected MP3 files). Napster’s service allows you to automatically transfer any purchased tracks into iTunes as unrestricted MP3 files that can then be transferred onto an Apple device.

Napster [Napster.com]

Metallica gave hints in an interview with Rolling Stone that it will follow the Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead model of Internet-based music distribution. (You can already download live show MP3s and FLACs, for the record.) Says Lars Ulrich:

We’ve been observing Radiohead and Trent Reznor and in twenty-seven years or however long it takes for the next record, we’ll be looking forward to everything in terms of possibilities with the Internet.

Unfortunately for Metallica, they released an album called St. Anger back in 2003, universally condemned as the worst piece of recorded music in history. “Madly in anger,” really? What does that even mean?

Oh, and they also helped kill Napster. That’s not how you win friends.

via Slashdot

Eliot Van Buskirk was sick — sick! — of paying for music download services. Now that Amazon is DRM-free and offers lots of music, he decided to cancel all of his music subscriptions. Yahoo was the easiest at about 1 minute but it took him 30 minutes to cancel Napster and 10 minutes to cancel Rhapsody. This reminds me of trying to cancel my XBox Live and MS SPOT subscriptions. Microsoft hides most of their cancellation systems behind languid representatives in a call center somewhere in Bangalore, ensuring anger all around.

Why (And How) I Just Canceled All My Music Subscriptions [Wired]

Sorry for the delay, folks. I was busy fondling my Kindle yesterday and seemed to have left this one slip through the cracks. AT&T and Samsung announced the SLM yesterday, which is the first phone to feature Napster Mobile. On top of that it also has video share (3G!), stereo Bluetooth, and a 2-megapixel camera. Internal memory is a bit skimpy at only 50MB split between media and photos. The SLM will be available on the 23rd for $150 after a $50 rebate.

TC via Press Release

Napster is rolling out its over-the-air (OTA) music service on Japan’s NTT Docomo. The service lets Napster To Go subscribers download music onto compatible cellphones (so far, the 904i series). All songs downloaded onto cellphones can then be transferred to compatible music players and PCs. Can iTunes do that?

This is fun and all, and something many people wish the iPhone would be able to do right out of the box, but until Napster brings it over here, it might as well not exist. The monthly subscription fee seems like overkill if you’re the type of person who only downloads (well, legally) one or two songs per month. But good luck to Napster and all its future endeavors.

Press Release

Circuit City, Napster to offer joint music service [Reuters]

Also, we’ll be seeing a new phone from Apple – something called the iPhone – officially available in June with no delays. The reps said data and mobile use is going to go through the roof when the device launches, suggesting some sort of all-you-can-eat plan (similar to what they have for Blackberry users or their 3G unlimited data plans).

Back when pirating music was in vogue, a guy named Shawn Fanning made a little program called Napster. It enabled P2P file sharing and piracy to skyrocket in less than a year. So after Shawn sold Napster, got some cash, and got sued, he apparently sat down and got really into this game you may have heard of: World of Warcraft.

Fanning is now working on a social networking site called Rupture, which is named after a Rogue talent found in WoW. The concept is sound and bringing WoW players together outside the game is a great idea, but what does Fanning want to do exactly?

He said the following about his idea:

“Using an add on or a software download, Rupture taps into the game to automatically pull together character names, profiles, and resources, and publish them on a personalized site. Rupture will also pull together stats to create individual and guild rankings and provide a place for guilds to organize their playing. As Rupture tracks each member’s playing over time, these personalized profiles evolve. And players will be able to chat in groups or with other individuals and download other add-ons and game demos.”

Sounds like an improved version of Thottbot mixed with MySpace. I’ll bite, for now.

Napster Founder Develops WoW Social Network [1UP]