Napster (NASDAQ: NAPS), a music-download service, reported Q4 and full-year results on Wednesday. I must admit, for a very low single-digit stock, the results seemed pretty cool.

For the fourth quarter, revenues increased about 6% to $30.8 million and the net loss for the quarter came in at $0.10 per diluted share; this was much better than the loss of $0.20 per diluted share seen in last year's comparable quarter, which also included $0.03 attributable to discontinued operations. Briefing.com says this performance beat Wall Street's expectations by three pennies. For the full fiscal year, the top line increased a nice 15% to $127.5 million and the bottom-line loss was $0.38 per diluted share versus a net loss of $0.85 per diluted share in fiscal 2007. Perhaps even more important is the fact that Napster is, according to the release, generating positive cash flow, an achievement the company has kept up for four quarters now.

Of course, the big story this week is Napster's attempt at upping its game against competitors such as Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) by opening a music-download site dedicated to the sale of MP3 tunes (I wrote an post on the subject, and so did Richard Driver). This is meant to broaden the company's appeal by going after consumers who don't necessarily dig the subscription model. I'll tell you, though, it's going to be a long while before Napster supplants the dominance of the iTunes store.

Sure, I thought Napster's quarter was actually a good one, but if you think I'm rushing out to buy this stock, which is priced as of this writing at $1.69 per share, you can forget it. Napster is going to have to get rid of the losses, for one thing. For another, it will have to do something to really challenge Apple's dominance.

Seriously, why fool around with Napster's stock when you can buy Apple's? I know, these low-priced equities could swing to the upside on a volatile day, but I'm not into that kind of speculation. Best-of-breed is key here, and for me, Apple would be the one in terms of digital music.

Disclosure: I don't own shares in any company mentioned in this piece; positions can change at any time.