Comparing MusicSelect Providers

There are many differences between Napster and eMusic.  Understand these differences before you choose one provider over the other. 

eMusic is a membership music store.  Your MusicSelect membership entitles you to 20 downloads for each quarter of membership, once you use all of your downloads, you are done shopping in the store.  If you'd like to continue shopping in the eMusic store, you can sign up for your own account (see below). 

Napster is both a membership service and a pay-per-song store.  The membership gives you unlimited access to Napster's library of 5 million songs without having to buy any songs indivually.  You can "stream" songs from Napster's servers or download them to your computer and ply them as often as you'd like.  When your membership expires, the music stops playing.  However, you can buy a song to keep it forever, burn it to a CD, or move it to a portable music player. 

Both Napster and eMusic run on Windows, MacOS, and Linux.  Songs purchased from eMusic will work on any MP3 player; songs purchased from Napster will only work on portable music players compatible with Microsoft Plays For Sure¹ -- that includes almost all players except the iPod and Zune family.

Here are the gory details: