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Rhapsody Rebrands Itself As Napster (thenextweb.com)
An anonymous reader writes: After completing its purchase of Napster in December 2011, Rhapsody has decided to rebrand itself as Napster. Rhapsody made the announcement on their blog, which states: "No changes to your playlists, favorites, albums, and artists. Same music. Same service. Same price. 100% the music you love. Stay tuned!" That's it. The company didn't elaborate as to why they decided to change their name now. Napster has made a name for itself as being a brand synonymous with illegal music downloads. It'll be interesting to what kind of effect, if any, this has on Rhapsody.
He ain't rich enough
Is Rhapsody that hungry for bankruptcy.
They can't possible believe that taking the name of a defunct 18 year old filesharing service will lend them any street cred, can they?
That's like Verizon renaming themselves AOL.
"Napster has made a name for itself as being a brand synonymous with illegal music downloads."
is that an intentional understatement or just plain ignorance?
in contrast,
"rhapsody" !?
what's that? seriously!
Cashing in on movie notoriety as Napster is the bad guy in that overly nostalgic movie about a piss stained shithole of a music store."All Things Must Pass". RIAA anti-internet freedom propaganda. http://www.towerrecordsmovie.c...
they just want the nappy cat logo out front. this time, add whiskers.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I bought the LZ works and it was shitty 128 bitrate. Even Napster isn't what it was after RIAA shut it down, there was some rare content that is forever lost.
Seriously, why is this on the front page and items like Hilary's use of a private server to order assassinations in another nation is no where to be found?
It'll be interesting to what kind of effect, if any, this has on Rhapsody.
No it wont. Rhapsody is already branded as Napster in all the other countries it operates in except for the United States.
I didn't even know it existed as a Music Streaming service, and according to this, is possibly even better than Pandora.
Does this mean Rhapsody of Fire can change their name back to Rhapsody again?
Napster: pay for music that you still won't own!
seriously, these music streaming services are retarded.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Has everyone forgotten that Roxio and Best Buy also used Napster branding? Napster has spent more time in legit business than in piracy.
And I don't think they get it either. Napster was revolutionary because the ability to search and trade songs with people over the internet. Yes it was piracy, but it became essentially became an icon of "anti-music industry" and Anti-RIAA. And it seems people are still trying to profit by it, which I don't get how they think it will work.
/rant
I mean I get it, there's some nostalgia to the name, but the name was related to a service that has long been dead. What customers are they trying to get? People in their 30s who remember the name and for some reason will flock to it because it reminds them of their teen/college years? Hardly i'd think.
It's 2016, so 20 years ago would've been 1996.... Damn I'm old.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
Napster has made a name for itself as being a brand synonymous with illegal music downloads.
Keep up with the times, Slashdot. We prefer the expression "undocumented music downloads" nowadays.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
I got "dumped" into Rhapsody after the URGE store closed down (which arguably was excellently curated because at the time, MTV actually did some decent background write-ups about bands.)
Trying to cancel with them is insane. You can't cancel online, but you have to call, be passed between people until you start demanding a supervisor, then "Can you cancel my subscription, if not, hand me to someone with that capability". It was an extremely unpleasant experience with multiple call attempts until it was done. Any of the other mainstream services can be stopped pretty easily, but because it was so difficult to cancel with them, I'd never ever go back, no matter how good they were.
Adding "ly" to something seems to at least get the VCs wound up. I did a quick survey in the house - the 17 year old said he has heard of Napster, the 15 year old said "what's Napster?", the 13 year old said "whatster?" Not that Rhapsody is used by anyone in the house either - nor did it have any name recognition with anyone. Sounds DOA(ly).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Rhapsody Of Fire good! Rhapsody bad! (only Power Metal fans will understand)
So we're going from something that was relevant fourteen years ago (Rhapsody,) to something that was relevant seventeen years ago (Napster.) Way to be masters of innovation!
They bought the corpse of Napster so that they can wear its face!