By Rob Pegoraro
Post
Sunday, May 22, 2005; F07

Napster Inc. should dump its "Do the Math" ad campaign before it gets embarrassing. By any calculation, its all-you-can-download Napster To Go service can't compete with the subscription plans just launched by RealNetworks Inc. and Yahoo Inc.

These new offerings remedy the glaring flaw of Napster To Go -- the way it seems to serve the record labels' interests a little too well. Napster To Go's $14.95 monthly fee permits subscribers to collect all the music they want and listen to it on some Windows Media-compatible digital music players. But if they stop paying, the music stops playing -- and getting a permanent copy that can be burned to CD requires purchasing it anew at the full list price of 99 cents.

RealNetworks' Rhapsody and Yahoo's Music Unlimited deliver the music-for-rent idea in smarter, fairer ways. Rhapsody lets anybody listen to 25 songs a month for free and offers subscribers who want to buy a song a 10-cent discount. Yahoo's service costs less than half Napster To Go's rate and offers subscribers a steeper discount on purchases-- 20 cents off each permanent download.

Both just might tempt iTunes shoppers -- well, those running Windows, as neither new service works on a Mac.

Seattle-based Real's Rhapsody ( http://www.rhapsody.com/ ) is the weaker contender of the two, thanks to its greater cost and complexity. Rhapsody, which debuted back in late 2001 as a listen-only service, now comes in four flavors, continuing Real's long tradition of perplexing users with overlapping, seemingly redundant offerings.

(Real also still offers a download-only store in its separate RealPlayer software, which seems even less appealing than before next to the clean, largely nuisance-free Rhapsody.)

At the low end, anybody can download the Rhapsody program (Win 98 SE or newer) to listen to 25 tracks a month free, out of a 1.1 million-song inventory. They can also buy songs at 99 cents each from a million-song catalogue.

The list of compatible players includes the usual Windows Media-based models but also Palm handheld organizers and -- thanks to an update to Real's Harmony software -- Apple iPods as well. Despite earlier iPod revisions by Apple to quash Harmony, I had no issues moving a purchased album onto an iPod Photo and an iPod Mini. (I had major issues trying to repeat that feat with two Palm handhelds, the new Tungsten E2 and LifeDrive; Rhapsody didn't even see them when plugged into the computer.)

A $4.99-a-month upgrade adds a long list of Web radio stations, plus the ability to create your own: Pick 10 artists you like, name the station, and click the play button. The results bring the same delightful surprises as shuffling through a musically savvy friend's iPod.

Finally, two pricier, Windows XP-only subscription offerings pile on unlimited downloads on a rental basis. An $8.99 option allows playback only on computers, while the flagship $14.99 plan includes the ability to copy these files to music players that support the latest version of Microsoft's Windows Media software (such as the iRiver H10 successfully tested).

These for-rent downloads can't be burned to CD and require that you go online once a month to allow Rhapsody's software to confirm your subscription status.

If you want to end those restrictions, you can buy songs at 89 cents each, 10 percent off the non-subscriber rate. But Rhapsody hides that option from shoppers: You must hold down the Control key as you click a plus-symbol link next to a song just to see its price.

Yahoo's Music Unlimited service ( http://music.yahoo.com/ ) is much simpler to understand: Pay $6.99 a month or $59.98 a year to listen to all the music you want and copy it to eligible Windows Media-compatible players. The same iRiver H10 worked just as well here.

Yahoo says more than a million tracks are available for rent. Songs available for purchase at 79 cents each (all but 85,000 of the for-rent tracks, plus 20,000 not offered on a subscription basis) are clearly labeled as such.

The usage permissions set in each download are looser than Rhapsody's, allowing a song to be played on any five computers at once, up from three, and any one playlist to be burned to an audio CD 10 times, up from five. As with Rhapsody, you can copy a download to as many music players as you want.

The Yahoo Music Engine software needed to browse and buy (Win 2000 or newer) throws in access to Yahoo's LaunchCast custom radio station. This provides more ways to define your tastes than Rhapsody's equivalent, but the software DJ behind it serves up too many obvious, overplayed hits.

You can fine-tune a LaunchCast station by rating each track played from one to five or blackballing it entirely, but a few days of this has yet to cut down on the boredom factor.

Yahoo Music also allows subscribers to play -- but not copy -- songs to each other over Yahoo's instant-messenger service. Chat partners who don't subscribe to Yahoo Music only get a 30-second snippet of each song.

But with the number of Yahoo Messenger users trailing behind those using the AOL and MSN IM networks, you may find few fellow listeners online. As if it's trying to reverse that, the Yahoo Music installer pushes you to switch a batch of Internet settings, such as your browser's start page and search engine, to Yahoo.

Yahoo's Music Engine software, notwithstanding its clean looks and generous feature set (you can copy CDs to your computer in almost every format in existence), shows its unfinished, beta-test status too often. It frequently coughs up error messages, incorrectly displays the usage rights of songs imported from an existing collection and presents one of the worst-organized help files around.

Even factoring in those defects, Yahoo's pricing is still enormously enticing. Rhapsody's brilliant custom-radio station and iPod compatibility may also lure some iTunes shoppers.

Apple seems to think that's not going to happen; its officials routinely say that nobody wants for a music-for-rent option. But if Yahoo or Rhapsody take off, I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple come out with an "iRent" service of its own.

Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro atrob@twp.com.