The service will launch with more than a half-million songs from all the major music labels and offer both individual song and album downloads as well as a subscription service. Pressplay, which went off-line Tuesday, only offered access to songs for a monthly fee.

Like other music download retail sites, Napster 2.0 will incorporate some usage restrictions, but officials at Santa Clara, Calif.-based Roxio downplayed their effect.

"Ninety-nine percent or more of our Napster users will never bump their heads against any usage rules," Chris Gorog, Roxio's chairman and chief executive, told The Associated Press Wednesday. "They're going to be in an environment where everything costs the same, where every song that they select they can burn to a CD or offload to their device, they can do it multiple times and they won't even know what the usage rules are because they are so flexible."

Roxio is betting the Napster brand will help set its service apart from a bevy of other digital music retailers that have launched since Apple Computer Inc. introduced its iTunes Music Store in April.