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."

Comments

Napster's assets?

[cliffy2000]

Yes, my valuation of Napster is up there with Enron and Global Crossing. :)
So many assets!

Re:Napster's assets?

[PepsiProgrammer]

This is probably the largest source of income napster has ever seen, rather ironic that its comming from their biggest enemy at one time. A modernized napster would be nice, but somehow i dont see bmg sponsoring a true free filesharing app.

in other words..

[swein515]

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.

Re:in other words..

[Ooblek]

Not true! 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.

as usual, the music industry

[JeanBaptiste]

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.

Re:as usual, the music industry

[jglow]

wouldn't it be cheaper to pay someone to duplicate technologies in Napster rather than buying the name? There's gotta be other reasons behind this...

Re:as usual, the music industry

[zCyl]

wouldn't it be cheaper to pay someone to duplicate technologies in Napster rather than buying the name?

Welcome to postmodernism. Names are worth far far more than technologies. Do you think McDonalds has some magic way to make burgers and fries better than anybody else can?

What they aren't allowed to do!

[Bouncings]

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!

..Does anyone still care?

[Bowie J. Poag]

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,

Re:..Does anyone still care?

[PepsiProgrammer]

yeah their uncentralized and unstoppable alright, thats why the linux client, and morpheus (same network) no longer function.

Who still cares about Napster?

[agent oranje]

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.

Re:This is good but

[PepsiProgrammer]

Well, at least SOMEONE is buying something from napster now.

Legitimacy, that's why.

[Planesdragon]

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.

Re:Legitimacy, that's why.

[manobes]

Here's the problem as I see it.

People aren't attached to music labels. Nobody is exclusive to a certianly record label (i.e. I only buy Sony). This is a huge problem for label sponsored download sites.

While I concur with your point that nobodys going to mind paying $5/year to use BMG/Napster, they aren't going to want to do the same form Sony/Napsterclone, Universial/Napsterclone, etc. It's not just the price, it's the hassle. You've got to fill out a separte signup form for each one, and each has a different UI, different media format, different copying policy etc.

CD stores are successful becuase they aren't label specific, that's why Napster was successfull too. You could get anything you wanted there. If all they carry in the future is BMG music, then what's the point?

The Benefit to BMG

[Kraegar]

Is that they now have the Napstar name. When you mention "MP3" or "Music Online" the majority of sheep think of Napster. So now a major corporation (one of those that oppressed Napster to the point of death) now owns that name.

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.

Why did they buy Napster

[Target Drone]

Bertelsmann has since spent millions of dollars to prop up Napster

...

Bertelsmann will pay $8 million to Napster's creditors to acquire the company's assets. The transaction opens the door for Napster to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, according to sources close to the deal.

Seems like an awful lot of money to pay for a company since

• 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?

1. They're a few fruit loops short of a box
2. They are buying the company just to make sure Napster doesn't somehow get going again
3. Napster has technology that can be patented
4. They know something we don't
5. All of the above

Can we expect?

[tezzery]

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?