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BMG to Purchase Napster
asv108 writes "In a dramatic reversal, Bertelsmann has agreed to purchase Napster's assets. Founder Shawn Fanning and CEO Konrad Hilbers are set to return to the company after announcing their resignation earlier this week."
Who cares about this anyway? Napster is dead. The reason Napster was so popular will never be the same.
Yes, my valuation of Napster is up there with Enron and Global Crossing. :)
So many assets!
Unless it means We get the good old napster back for free, does anyone really care?
Teach someone to use the net and they won't bother you for weeks; show them Slashdot and you may never see them again.
Just why are BMG doing this? It would seem they've missed the boat - no one is going to pay for something which before they could get for free. Are they just being stupid, or can they see something we can't?
SpamNet - a spam blocker that really works
Err, wait, no, Booo!!!! Err, wait, who cares anymore?
My guess is he got no money. I wonder what kind of job he can get now.
There are way better programs out now. Kazaa, and Gnutella networks beat out Napster. They can have anything from movies, text files, and music. So... whatever..
Founder Shawn Fanning...set to return to the company after announcing their resignation earlier this week.
..after realizing he had zero experience or skill to work anywhere else.
so.. the company that was (or still is?) suing Napster has now purchased it. I think it's safe to say that Napster is officially dead.
There's no "I" in Linux.. err..
Mapster is dead. Napster does have name recognition, but until the free alternatives are gone no one will pay for it.
is about 2 years behind everyone else... I am just worried they bought napster in order to patent some of the involved technologies. They do have the money to pay the lawyers to try to do that.
Napster is irrelevant.
Filesharing is going quite strong.
BMG is throwing good money after bad.
Casca
Yes, they purchased napster, but they aren't allowed to make copies of the company or share it with any of their partners. Shame. Although if you stick a post-it note on Shawn's face, you can clone him!
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
Who could possibly care about this relic and the predictable characters who surround it, after this long?
With OpenNAP, WinMX, and so many other P2P solutions available these days, does anyone really care about Napster? By today's standards, centralized hub-trading is sort of obsolete..
tar zxvf bag.tar.gz | cat cat
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
Maybe if the record companies finally have their own solid method of distributing music, then maybe they will stop bothering file sharing services.
napster changed everything, but when it died others stepped up to the plate. Sure the time in between sucked (aimster and early limewire, etc.) but now with the fastrack network and audiogalaxy, mp3s are pretty much as easy to get as before, sans the convienence of a centralized server. Secondly, napster is going to be using their new file format, and it has no chance of replacing mp3s. mp3s are popular and have a well saturated population on the net. Other formats have come out that are smaller in size at the same quality like wma(yeh i know its windows only) and ogg, but mp3s stay on top because of popularity and convience. Finally, since they have been bought by BMG, I assume there is going to be some sort monetary transaction involved. Are people willing to pay for music? Yes, I believe so, but only if it is really cheap (99 cents a song or so) and most of the money goes directly to the artists. I don't know what their plan is.
So basically, what Im saying is napster has a chance to get back in the game, but it won't succeed, and I think most people will agree.
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=6, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=12. (not mine)
Who would want that crappy visual-basic written software anyway? Oh wait...it wasn't written in visual basic??? How does it crash so much????
Got friends?
Never argue with a man carrying a water buffalo
Sounds like another large corp. knows the 3 E's of competition: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
I haven't used Napster since "the man" first cracked down on them, because there are so many alternatives which will forever be free. I don't use these, either, as emusic.com provides quality music, fast downloads, and I'm actually supporting the artists in the end. I'd rather pay a small fee to get what I want then endlessly search for what I want with a free client.
Napster is dead, and due to the fact that Napster isn't Jesus, Napster is going to stay dead. I'm glad the record companies are wasting their time and resources trying to bring back the service they destroyed. The irony of companies wasting their money trying to revitalize a service that they claimed would cause them to lose money. -agent oranje. its not just for breakfast anymore.
-agent oranje.
It is official: ZDNet confirms: IP theft is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered IP theft community when IDC confirmed that IP theft market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all file-sharing. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that IP theft has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. IP theft is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin [amdest.com] to predict IP theft's future. The hand writing is on the wall: IP theft faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for IP theft because IP theft is dying. Things are looking very bad for IP theft. As many of us are already aware, IP theft continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. Napster is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core users.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Gnutella leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of Gnutella. How many users of KazAA are there? Let's see. The number of Gnutella versus KazAA posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 KazAA users. Morpheus posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of KazAA posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of Morpheus. A recent article put Napster at about 80 percent of the IP theft market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Napster users. This is consistent with the number of Napster Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of RIAA, abysmal sales and so on, Napster went out of business and was taken over by BMG who sell another troubled OS. Now Napster is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that IP theft has steadily declined in market share. IP theft is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If IP theft is to survive at all it will be among Music dilettante pirates. IP theft continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, IP theft is dead.
Sounds like the board of napster tried to call a bluff which wasn't a bluff. Though if I was anyone affiliated with napster I'd be taking what I can, as at least from the outside, it looks like a sinking ship.
BMG, and the rest of RIAA, can sell something that no file-sharing app can get you. Legallity and legitimacy.
There is a price-point where people will pay to have a legal right to the song that's allready illegally on their computer. If BMG can figure out the right price point, they can make a profit selling nothing but legitimacy.
Personally, I'd give them my legal name, home address, and give them permission to track me until the day I die IF I can get a full legal title to the music I buy. I want to be able to get a "replacement media" discount on a new copy of my destroyed CD. I want to be able to download lossless song files to burn me a custom album, and have it be 100% legit.
I won't pay $50 a month to do this. I would pay $5 a year. Somewhere in between those two, I would have to reserve judgement until the offer's been made.
If BMG can provide what I want, I will buy from them.
1. What sort of assets would they have?
2. Who cares, let dead horses stay dead.
The whole thing looks like something out a family sitcom. The siblings are fighting when a couple of them decide that they are going to go and pout. This brings Dad onto the scene who patches everything up with some good advice, perhaps a threat and 8 million dollars.
Grip
Failure is not an option. It comes automatically enabled in every Microsoft product.
Finally some else who thinks that Fanning should b cast away with for inventing a crappy way to share music. Whatever happend to FTP indexes?
Any publicity is good publicity...
And the whole lawsuit thing was a whole lot of publicity where Napster was seen as the underdog by most people. Now BMG not only owns Napster, but owns that image they helped to create.
What will they do with it? I dunno, but you can bet it will involve them trying to make a profit. Don't go lookin for freebies.
- The software, while innovative will probably need an almost complete rewrite when they go to a new legit way of distributing music
- All of their customers have gone over to Kaza, Gnutella, etc.
- The name is now synonymous with illegal music. Although maybe they think it is worth something.
- The company still needs to file for bankruptcy protection.
So why are they paying so much for a company who's net worth ranks right up there with Enron? Is it?I'm still angry about Napster getting shut down. Napster was for novelty purposes only. If a couple bad apples on the internet want to trade copyrighted MP3s, Napster should not be held responsible.
Do you /.ers seriously think that Napster hasn't developed any new software? They've had two years to work on their code base. Of course they have assets.
All that today's file-sharing networks have on the old Napster are multiple-source downloads and gratuitous spyware. Napster's old client may be old news, but I wouldn't discount whatever they've developed in the meantime.
--
Slogan-free since April! We pass the savings on to you!
Napster is right up there with afros on the outdated list. Some people still use but, it just ain't happening.
Various file sharing programs.
http://www.mtv411.com/file-sharing.htm
Come on, CmdrTaco, April Fools was a couple of months ago! Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, shame on you.
GIR: I'm going to sing the Doom song now. Doom doom doom doom doom doom de-doom doom doom doom doom doom doom...
Napster is a household name by now. Even my parents still recognize it. That is worth some $.
Duh!
I guess we can expect a new download club from BMG where you download 4 songs for 49 cents, if you agree to buy another 3 at regular club prices?
I still portscan on 137 and 139 daily and I see all kinds of stuff on C:\ that people don't know is there ;)
/x01:01 0x2
Take, for instance, slashdot.org is doing all kinds of shit on port 22. I sent a valid key to port 22, then crapflooded the rest and crashed "Das Software". Thank me later
my
April was last month man...
What's napster? If it's from BMG sounds like it might be cool.
is it just me, or is napster.com down?
perhaps we have a motive?
sig - .
More information about the takeover in this comment here.
æeee!
So is Shawn rich then, or what?
Vidi, Vici, Veni
If the anti-circumvention part was taken out of the DMCA it wouldn't be so bad if they followed up with an ammendment that says that an ISP can add a bill of >=$1 to the home user monthly bill that would be collected and sent to the RIAA to distribute and then all home users of that ISP would be immune from not-for profit file sharing copyright prosecution or liability. If I could pay $5 a month extra to be immune from prosecution and lawsuits so that I could use whatever protocol I want to download music to sample.... that is a pretty damn small price to pay.
If only they were using Open Source Software in the music industry...
1 cent for the first twenty downloads. Then $15 for it each additional MP3, 1 min. per month for the next 40,000 months?
Let Napster die... It will always have a spot in our hearts and a spot on the bumpers of those who ended up with stickers. But, it really is the wrong way to go about it. I am not going to pretend that everybody here uses these things for legitimate purposes so lets get down to the point. If you want to use a service and have it stay around for awhile, you need to find another filesharing method that has been around for years without being pinched off.
The number one that comes to mind for me is IRC combined with a real file transfer method (ftp) none of that dcc crap. Well... awhile back I started playing with Direct Connect. And it seems to be a good shot at the "right" way to do it. Anybody can setup a HUB, which is used for chatting and brokers search requests. Hubs can interconnect (like irc) and make a much larger resource base. And clients are the nodes.
It has a higher learning curve than napster or kazaa but after you figure it out and find a few good hubs you like you should be set.
Your parody of the classic "BSD Is Dying" story forgets 1. that Morpheus is now part of Gnutella, and 2. that WinMX has become exceedingly popular because it's essentially the same as the old Napster, but completely decentralized.
BMG who sell another troubled OS.
What the?
Will I retire or break 10K?
...has 9 fucking lives! More power to him!
'There is great chaos under heaven, and the situation is excellent.'
A de-centralised system is needed. Take into affect why Napster was shutdown, by the following illustration on Napster's centralised peer-to-peer access...
/ /
ASQDS=Authentication Structured Query Database Server
P2P=Software able to answer requests for files as well as request files from another server.
P2P
/ | \
/ | \
P2P--ASQDS--P2P
\ |
\ |
NP2P
The problem with the above Napster design is that design prohibits users from directly accessing other P2P data servers without the ASQDS. And so, Napster is a centralised design for the sole reason of 1)tracking data requests, 2)tracking data transfers, and generally 3)providing revenue to tele-marketers. A more logical approach to a file sharing system would be...
P2P
ASQDS
|||
|||
P2P ====+=== P2P
ASQDS====+===ASQDS
|||
|+|
P2P ASQDS (forwarding-bridge)
|+|
|||
P2P ====+=== P2P
ASQDS====+===ASQDS
|||
|||
P2P
ASQDS
...somehow, the above design looks just like the Gnutella networks. Thus, I promote the usage of Vanilla Nutella and not its proprietary derivatives including but not limited to BearShare and Limeware.
I simply don't understand why everyone consistently gets excited about Napster's potential return.
Yes it was an evolutionary jump in MP3 location technology, it was innovative - but it's had it's day. Newer P2P technology from the likes of Edonkey, Gnutella and Kazaa have learned from Napster's shortcomings and produced even better, more reliable solutions.
Has anyone stopped to recall how long it sometimes took to actually get a connection to a Napster server?
The Amiga was innovative and fun but would anyone trade their P4 for one to use every day?
I see this as a move by BMG to use the Napster name to push their dated and exploitive business model onto the web.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
this comes from someone that owns a Napster T-Shirt.
Napster as we know it is dead.
The recording industry as we know it (certainly the distribution side) is probably heading that way too.
We can guess, but no one really knows what the future holds for media production and distribution -- lot's of ideas for business models and cultural shifts - but no one really has a clue what's going to stick.
But everyone and their grandmother knows the name Napster and what it stands for, and there is already a certain amount of nostalgia for the first breakthough P2P music service and probably always will be since they did come first.
BMG is probably just hedging their bets.
Their best move might be to buy the Napster "assets" -- just the name and history really, then just hold on to it for a while so they don't tarnish the "brand".
Maybe P2P, ripping, and burning will just go away with some breakthrough copy protection -- I'm certainly not betting on it and they probably aren't either. Like everybody else in the recording industry, they'll kick and scream and try to hold on to their tenuous historical position while also experimenting with various on-line ventures - most of which will be doomed to mixed results and outright failure.
Once the cards really start to fall (along with many of the established players who won't accept drastically lower margins and/or different revenue sources) and a more stable model is reached, BMG could then rebrand the best product or service they've developed or adopted as the "New Napster(tm)" to help save whatever value their stock might still have.
Branding certainly isn't what is once was, but for an aging multi-billion dollar conglomerate, throwing down a few million is nothing if they can one day claim to be the first player in whatever new industry paradigm emerges and hopefully evoke a little nostagia while they're at it.
"Remember the first time you used Napster...?"
My next sig will be ready soon, but friends can beat the rush!
For those of you still longing for good old days of Napster, try WinMX. The interface is somewhat similar to Napster client but has more features. I especially like the bandwidth throttle and auto complete. You may be surprised to know that it doesn't come with any spyware. Only downside is that it is only available for Windows. Does anyone knows if it runs on Wine or VMWare?
Remember, when you pay for MP3s, You're Rockin' Out with The Man!
I wondered if a big company would buy Napster and sit on it. This will be interesting to see if the assets are going to be used or not.
Put yourself in Shauns shoes... You are sick of friends 'not getting it' when in comes to the internet, ftp's and irc are to 'techy' for most. You write some file sharing software to fill a gap in whats available. It becomes fantastically popular, suddenly you are a dot.pinup and getting rich really fast.
Then it all goes horribly wrong. Suddenly the record companies are accusing you of robbing them blind, to the tune of millions cubed. And they are going to take it to the courts, all the way. Being rational, at first you think 'this is ridiculous, i mean CD sales are actually going UP', but a reality kick: it doesnt matter. They take you to court and win. Your fucked.
Plan B: If you cant beat em, join em. Then that sad situation results in software no one would want to use. But at least you are not bankrupt, so you let it ride. Then all tha falls through. I would be pretty disillusioned by this stage. When you think about it, the original napster could have been used to complete replace the current distribution model that is the reason why artists sign to labels in the first place.
Been to a concert lately? This seems like how bands plan to do several encores now days and even have special features and things to show during these. Kind of a publicity stunt.
Please help! I'm stuck inside my virtual reality headset!
... and they can't buy that with any amount of money: the old Napster user base. Without that, they have nothing.
Unless, of course, they're changing it into a whole different 'service' (i.e. no longer p2p but direct downloads from Bertelsmann's servers), in which case it's no longer Napster.
This is great news--Bertelsmann is throwing a ton of money down a rat hole!
-- Shamus
Bleah!
i wish i could sell absolutely nothing of value to a company for $8 million dollars.
So does this mean BMG and the RIAA own the search and transfer logs relating to everyone who ever used the service? "Dear sir/madam, we notice you downloaded an illegal MP3, you owe us $100,000 per song. KTHX."
Money Talks. That's all. If I were getting my ass sued off and people were throwing me butt-loads of money to buy my quasi-illegle brand name, I'd be sorely tempted to cash out too. It sucks, but it's hard to blame them at the same time. Look at it this way... They're $20 million richer than you or I at the moment. It's the dotcom dream.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
What you people don't realize is that BMG is not paying for software or a company, they are paying for a name. That is something Kazaa, Limewire, WinMX, Bearshare... any of them don't have. When my mom hears something about mp3s what does she say? "Oh, you mean like that napster thing?" that's what she says, and that's what millions of other Americans who aren't slashdot nerds say. If my mom wanted to get mp3s she wouldn't know how to go about it, but if she knew that Napster, this place she'd hear so much about a while back could get them to her then she'd go to www.napster.com and get it. It's a very smart move on BMG's part I'd say... in the business world they've always said the most important thing is "location location location", well on the internet the most important thing is "Name Name Name".
-Alex
Jesus Shawn.... get out of there already! I thought that he had left the company over a year ago. But, I guess I was wrong. Shawn needs to come up with another "killer app" to set the world on its ear. Maybe if Shawn Fanning and Justin Frankel teamed up we could create the perfect distributed file sharing network. Preferably one with "counterstrike" capabilities. If it detects that you are trying to fuck with or break the network -- it performs a massive DoS attack on your ass. Take that Hilary Rosen!
He could open up one of those little burn-your-own mix kiosks that you find all over the streets in China. I'm sure he has just a few gigs of mp3s these days.
Which makes me ask a question I was pondering earlier today. Is there ANYWHERE you can buy a few data dvds with almost every song that has ever been put to mp3 form?
I would buy a dvd drive just for the ability to access a few dvds filled with mp3s. It would sure beat searching and downloading for anything that's out of shrink wrap.
Back in 1996, when my band was signed to BMG, I asked one of the corporate head honchos (or maybe that should be hedgehogs...spiky animal that eats slugs and curls up into a ball to protect itself from oncoming headlights) what their plans for internet marketing were.
The response: "Oh, the internet isn't important".
Times change, even in the record industry.
Farmer Tim
tapirfarmer@[evilempirefreemail].com
First they sue Napster to shreds
... now they buy all shreds
Sounds Microshoftish
I wonder if they can glue them though
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Don't get me wrong. Kazaa, Gnutella, they are great services. However, has anyone else noticed that the variety of music available has never equalled napster in it's heyday? As a listener of many different styles of music, it's hard to find as many live shows, jazz and blues artists, punk rock, even my favorite alt-country artists seem to lack a Kazaa/gnutella presence. Napster was great for locating things that are hopelessly out of print. I would gladly pay whatever it takes to have Napster return as it was, however, realistically, I know that's not going to happen. When are the labels going to realize that being able to sample different kinds of music not only causes people to grow intellectually, and culturally, but can cause them to sell thing s besides Brittany and N'Sync for a change??
I said 99 cents per song, not 15$ per album. most people don't want every song on an album because not every song is good. If you want the whole album there could be some sort of discount. 99 cents was just a guestimate, for various songs, not a whole album. 1 or 2 cents is pointless, the company would take the majority of that leaving the artist with practically 0.
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=6, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=12. (not mine)