Users have found a way to skirt copy protection on Napster's portable music subscription service just days after its high-profile launch, potentially letting them make CDs with hundreds of thousands of songs for free.

The New York Times/Reuters report (15 Feb.) that such users are already providing instructions to other would-be song burners through technology web sites like BoingBoing.Napster is currently offering a free trial of its new Napster To Go service, which will enable users for a monthly US$15 fee to download as much music as they want and transfer it to a portable device. They can also pay 99 cents for each track they want to burn to a CD.

That 'rental' model for digital entertainment, backed by Microsoft and others, is getting its most serious mass-market tryout yet with Napster to Go, says the NYT.

However, the paper says that according to various web sites, thwarting the intellectual property protections of the service is as easy as a free software patch.

Engadget.com said by installing the digital music program Winamp and then adding a secondary program to Winamp called Output Stacker, users could convert the digitally protected files from one format to another that can then be burned, unencumbered, onto CDs.

A spokeswoman for Napster said that such endeavors were nothing new and the company was not too concerned.

The paper says the 'new' Napster has positioned itself as the chief competitor to Apple Computer's iTunes service, which dominates the digital download market.