Napster - or at least a Napster-branded, for-pay version of the once popular and notorious music service - is on its way back to consumers.
Napster - or at least a Napster-branded, for-pay version of the once popular and notorious music service - is on its way back to consumers.
Roxio, maker of CD-copying software, announced this week that it had purchased online music service Pressplay from Vivendi's Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment and will base a new Napster service on it.
Roxio said that it paid $12.5 million (€10.7 million) in cash and 3.9 million shares of stock, a total worth around $39.5 million. The company paid $5 million in November for the bankrupt Napster.
Napster revolutionised and terrified the music establishment when it was launched three years ago, by giving online users a convenient and free way to share each other's music collections without paying fees to artists or recording companies. The service shut down in 2001 after failing to clear copyright-protected songs from its offerings.
The forthcoming Napster offering will be "a dramatic renovation of the Pressplay service", said Roxio chief executive Mr Chris Gorog. "It will contain far greater choice for the consumer."
Mr Gorog said the new Napster would debut within the next fiscal year and would offer less- restrictive CD-copying features than other music services.
The company plans to spend $20 million to launch the service, which will contain offerings from all five major labels.
Current for-pay music services have so far failed to take off among consumers. Critics say that's because they have limited selection of music and they enforce strict rules on copying or transferring music files.
Mr Michael Gartenberg, research director at Jupiter Research, said he hoped Roxio chose to emulate Apple Computer's online music service by letting users download and keep music files on their own computer, as opposed to subscription services such as Pressplay that only let users access their music as long as they continue to pay a monthly fee. - (Washington Post Service)
