Napster to adopt Web platform

Napster Inc., the digital music service, said Tuesday that it planned to attract more customers by moving to a Web-based platform that would allow users to play their music from any computer without downloading additional software.

The move is intended to open up the service and attract more paying subscribers by making the Napster platform more flexible and compatible with any Internet-enabled device.

Before now most Napster subscribers could listen to their music only after downloading the Napster software application onto their personal computers. This is similar to a model used by Apple Inc.’s iTunes store, which is the market leader, with more than 70% of all digital music sales.

Los Angeles-based Napster sells a subscription service for $10 to $15 a month that lets users stream or download an unlimited number of songs from its library of 5 million tracks.

Napster said it was getting set for a turning point in the digital music industry in 2008 as major record companies make more music available without copy protection software known as digital rights management. It forecast that, by the end of next year, the unprotected MP3 digital format will be the standard with major music companies and retailers.