Napster, a division of Roxio (Nasdaq: ROXI), announced that the highly-anticipated Napster 2.0 music service went live to music fans across America today. The most well-known music brand in the world, Napster 2.0 offers consumers downloads for just 99 cents a song or $9.95 per album, CD burning, transfer to portable devices, decades of Billboard charts, shared playlists within the Napster community, exclusive and original content, interactive radio, music videos, and access to the world’s largest music store with more than half-a-million tracks and growing.

Napster 2.0 users can freely sample the world’s largest and most diverse online collection of music, featuring more than 500,000 tracks. A revolutionary user-friendly interface allows people to quickly search for music, discover new artists, burn CDs and transfer music to an array of portable devices. Any visitor to the service can download Napster 2.0 free of charge, watch music videos on demand, listen to 30-second music clips, browse decades of Billboard charts, read Napster’s online magazine, Fuzz, email tracks to friends, browse other members’ collections and take full advantage of the most robust music recommendation engine ever created - all without spending a dime. Napster 2.0 also allows users to import their existing music files from their hard drive into the service so they can store, organize and access all of their music from one central location. Napster’s customer support is available both via phone and email.

Napster will also have a significant retail presence this holiday season when pre-paid Napster Cards offering 15 songs for $14.85 become available in more than 14,000 leading retail stores nationwide by mid-November. The Napster Card will enable consumers to give the gift of online music and legally download music and burn CDs without the use of a credit card.

Screenshots of Napster 2.0 Client

Napster is also accessible directly within Windows Media Player and Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004.