First, you can use napster with the ipod if you are buying the music. You would download napster but not take a subscription. They call it Napster Lite. You would have access to 30 second clips and would need to purchase to transfer to your mp3 player. Now the ability to use the music after the subscription ends is ended. The technology used is called DRM (Digital Rights Management)--Google it. There used to be some work arounds that allowed the conversion to a non DRM format. However, they have become quite intelligent as there no GOOD workarounds yet. The most popular way to bypass it is using a program called Tunebite which is bascially the same as recording something off of the radio. Some argue the quality is bad but I have tried it and it doesnt seem bad. The last post states that you could leave it on tyhe mp3 player forever. However it basically has a time stamp and will expire and force you to connect the player to the PC which will renew the "lease." I use the subscription $9.95 and can listen to the music on up to 3 computers or convert using tunebite and have the mp3s to use anywhere.
