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Bertelsman Seeks to Buy Napster

Posted by timothy on from the buy-it-all-let-god-sort-them-out dept.

jbc writes: "SF Gate is one of several places carrying the story that Bertelsman, which already invested a significant amount of money in Napster, is now looking to buy Napster outright. This is based on an interview with Bertelsman CEO Thomas Middelhoff that was published last week in the German newspaper Die Welt."

4 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. Easiest way to ensure Napster's legality by Dead+Penis+Bird · · Score: 4, Interesting

    By owning it, Bertlesmann can easily enforce the licenses on any BMG artist. With a label owning Napster, it lens it some legitimacy, and other labels may follow suit and sell licenses for their artists as well.

    An interesting experiment, indeed.

    --

    If I weren't nailed to the penis, I'd be pushing up the daisies!

  2. Perhaps? by tacokill · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Perhaps Bertelsman is taking a different strategic view of what is going on? They see the "other 4" going down an increasingly miserable road and decide that they are going to differentiate themselves by trying a sort-of napster like model (where piracy becomes a cost of doing business - like software). That's my guess.

  3. Could be a good thing... by NanoGator · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The first record company to properly embrace the internet may be the first to recieve money from me when I end my boycott of the RIAA.

    It's possible that they'll revamp Napster and turn it into something interesting. For example, what if they put up a server with tons of bandwidth and a ton of interesting songs available, complete with a reasonable per-song price. That'd be far better than any other record label is producing nowadays and would be a step in the right direction.

    I just hope they don't put stupid restrictions on it like 'you have to use .WMA format' or 'you cannot legally burn it to a CD.'

    Maybe I'm being over-imaginitive, but it'd be nice to see a music company show some interest in the new market created by the internet, instead of trying to shut it down.

    --
    "Derp de derp."
  4. It will never work by zecg · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It will never work. Napster is a dead cow, the brand name in this case is tied with keywords like "controversy" and "piracy" in the mind of the average consumer -- and "server down"/"lame" in the mind of the l33t. So buying it for its brand name is not too smart. And the code was not much to begin with. Why bother?

    --
    .i lu doi ringos.star. xu do puku'aroroi dunli dopecaku leni virnu li'u