AT&T and Napster make sweet necrophiliac music
Napster, the slow-dying music-subscription service born from the file-sharing startup's ashes, continues to lurch, corpse-like, at any business partner that doesn't flinch in disgust. Its latest shamble is a deal with AT&T to place its song library on mobile phones — at twice the price of regular downloads. AT&T backs the $1.99 price, saying that it costs a ton to transfer data files over the air. Somehow, I don't think consumers care about AT&T's bandwidth problems; the price point will likely make this partnership dead on arrival. Anyway, we're more interested in the other part of the Napster deal, which involves AT&T's broadband business. How, exactly, is AT&T going to promote Napster to AT&T Yahoo DSL subscribers without displacing its broadband partner's Yahoo Music service?