Adfreak reports Napster is going back to free, or so it seems. This sounds like a hard strategy stretch at "free", you can listen 5 times to a song then you have to purchase it. I’m not sure it’s time to party like it’s 1999, but who knows Friday is right around the corner. 

Hey Napster devotees! It might be time to party like it’s
1999! Following a lengthy attempt to go legit and be a paid service at the same
time, Napster announced this morning that it is reverting to being a free music
site,
with a few caveats, which may or may not be substantial depending on
your
point of view. The new Napster plans to use advertising as its primary
revenue
stream, and as for the free part, it extends to the first five times a
member
listens to the song. (Membership, unless one subscribes to a premium
Napster
service, is free.) After that, users who don’t subscribe to the site’s
premium
services have to buy the track to keep listening.

One thing that’s a
little peculiar about the release announcing the change is that nowhere
does
it mention even the existence of the iPod, which is
sort of like avoiding the elephant in digital music’s room. Of course,
when we asked the company about that, they replied back that Apple
prohibits sharing between iPod and any other service, so there you have
it. If you’re interested you can stream CEO Chris Gorog’s announcement of the new model, which seems to happening at 11:15 a.m. PST today at the Musexpo2006 show in Los Angeles.