BMG to Purchase Napster 155
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."
Re: (Score:1)
Re:This is good but (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This is good but (Score:1)
Just thought I'd mention that as it's a common fallacy that sucking back mountain dews (at least the US kind) all day leads to some extra long day, when the reality is quite the contrary.
Re:This is good but (Score:1)
Re:This is good but (Score:1)
Napster's assets? (Score:4, Funny)
So many assets!
Re:Napster's assets? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Napster's assets? (Score:1)
Dave
Napster Nostalgia (Score:1)
Re:Napster Nostalgia (Score:1)
There's always Kazaa, Gnutella, etc., and they're much better than Napster was anyways.
Re:Napster Nostalgia (Score:1)
Re:Napster Nostalgia (Score:1)
Why? (Score:2, Redundant)
Legitimacy, that's why. (Score:5, Informative)
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. (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Re:Legitimacy, that's why. (Score:2)
CD stores are successful becuase they aren't label specific, that's why Napster was successfull too
Oh, silly me, I thought it was because the music was free on Napster.
that's not saying it couldn't work this way, just, a little less so...
Re:Legitimacy, that's why. (Score:2)
the original post wasn't asking why Napster would want to be bought by BMG. It was asking why BMG would want to buy Napster. Writing a file sharing app is easy and cheap. Napster isn't even a great implementation.
I don't think it's too hard to see what BMG brings to the table. The question is, what does Napster have that would make BMG want to pay them for it?
Re:Legitimacy, that's why. (Score:2)
A name. Like it or not, Napster *still* has a strong trademark. Just like car companies can bring out the names of old car models & increase their market, BMG can label their new MP3 service "Napster" and get a bigger chunk of the market.
Re:Legitimacy, that's why. (Score:1)
Re:Legitimacy, that's why. (Score:1)
Have you ever heard a baritone sax solo on mp3?? Sounds like crap. The only way it sounds good is with no compression at all.
The day I can get CD quality downloading files, fast, without having to pay for huge bandwith, I will pay for legitimacy.
But is the RIAA Legitimate? (Score:2)
Re:Legitimacy, that's why. (Score:2)
Maybe they want access to all the log files so they can sue bazillions
of former users for copyright infringment...
Nah. They wouldn't do that would they?
Re:Legitimacy, that's why. (Score:1)
Re:Why? (Score:1)
Like P2P Hasselhoff.
I wonder if Shawn got any money (Score:1)
in other words.. (Score:5, Funny)
..after realizing he had zero experience or skill to work anywhere else.
Re:in other words.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:in other words.. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:in other words.. (Score:1)
Re:in other words.. (Score:1)
Re:in other words.. (Score:2)
And don't forget about all the music he's heard on the radio and has illegally stored in his head. Call in ElectroShock Therapy to erase it.
Re:in other words.. (Score:2)
Re:in other words.. (Score:1)
I suppose I wouldn't mind going back to a company where I got to sit on my ass all day and do nothing.
Re:in other words.. (Score:2)
What are you talking about? Metallica would be more than happy to have him in their band now that he's joined the dark side of the force.
so.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:so.. (Score:2)
as usual, the music industry (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:as usual, the music industry (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:as usual, the music industry (Score:1)
Re:as usual, the music industry (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Re:as usual, the music industry (Score:2)
IRC is already a standard and has published RFCs though.
What they aren't allowed to do! (Score:3, Funny)
I think Napster needs its own section... (Score:1, Funny)
Who could possibly care about this relic and the predictable characters who surround it, after this long?
Re:I think Napster needs its own section... (Score:1)
..Does anyone still care? (Score:4, Insightful)
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? (Score:1)
Re:..Does anyone still care? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:..Does anyone still care? (Score:1)
Re:..Does anyone still care? (Score:2)
Re:..Does anyone still care? (Score:1)
Re:..Does anyone still care? (Score:1)
Oh really? So you know a true P2P system that can find results on hundreds of millions of files in the next second or so, like Napster did at its peak? Everything currently is slow, unreliable (compared to Napster that is), and.. no userbase worth mentionning.
I just hope that the non-copyrighted stuff will still be allowed, which made the strengh of Napster in the first place (find obscure/old songs).
Re:..Does anyone still care? (Score:2)
Re:..Does anyone still care? (Score:1)
Excellent (Score:1)
too late, and everyone knows it (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:too late, and everyone knows it (Score:2)
(1) $0.99/song would be almost 15 bucks for a 15 track (not unusual) cd. Thats a savings of, oh, roughly zero. I doubt the 99 cents per song plan would get very far.
(2) FastTrack and Audio Galaxy are ridden with spyware for almost all users. As far as I know, gnutella is the only decent naptster replacement, and even some gnutella clients (limewire, et al) are doing spyware now. It's not as easy as it once was, many people are paying a price they don't even realize for their free music.
Of course, if your serious about mp3s, you're not looking for 128kbps individual tracks with fucked up filenames, and thats what all those services are filled with. FTP (or hotline even) and full albums is what I like.
Re:About the cost (Score:2)
1 to 2 cents is probably lower than we'll ever see, but i think 10 cents per song would be quite reasonable. What we need is a revolution in digital rights awareness, and a service where forwardthinking artists can choose to sell their mp3s cheaply (and under a license that allows users to redistribute them). Their should be a clear open policy about how much of the money goes to artists, though obviously the company will need a cut for operating costs.
There is absolutely no reason that the majority of the money we spend on music should end up in the pockets of business people rather than musicians; the current system is clearly broken. So until capitalism corrects itself and offers me a legal reasonable (affordable) way to get mp3s, I'm going to continue to ignore the RIAA's squeals and share music all I want.
Oh, and fuck Hilary Rosen. That bitch is pure evil, and not in the good way.
$8 Million?? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:$8 Million?? (Score:1)
The 3 E's (Score:2, Insightful)
Sounds like another large corp. knows the 3 E's of competition: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
Re:The 3 E's (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The 3 E's (Score:2)
I think you have the wrong 3 E's. This sounds more like Enron, Enron, Enron.
Who still cares about Napster? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
"The Man" (Score:2)
IP THEFT IS DYING (Score:2, Funny)
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.
Your BSD Is Dying parody forgets WinMX (Score:1)
Your parody of the classic "BSD Is Dying" story forgets 1. that Morpheus is now part of Gnutella, and 2. that WinMX [winmx.com] 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?
heh "oopsie" (Score:1)
Assets? (Score:1)
2. Who cares, let dead horses stay dead.
Kids these days... (Score:1)
Grip
The Benefit to BMG (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? (Score:1)
You're all too hard on Napster. (Score:1)
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.
--
Re:You're all too hard on Napster. (Score:1)
April Fools? (Score:1)
It's all about the name! (Score:2)
Duh!
Can we expect? (Score:3, Funny)
Dude michael... (Score:1)
hm.. (Score:1)
perhaps we have a motive?
Re:hm.. (Score:2)
is a major section of the internet dark?
Fantastic (Score:2)
More information about the takeover in this comment here [slashdot.org].
Shawn (Score:1)
An alternative form of forced licensing (Score:2)
Re:An alternative form of forced licensing (Score:2)
RIP (Score:1)
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 [neo-modus.com]. 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.
Shawn Fanning.... (Score:1)
Peer-to-Peer design goals (Score:1, Interesting)
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.
Does anyone actually *need* Napster (Score:1)
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?
Retro-Napster (Score:2, Insightful)
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...?"
WinMX is what Napster was... (Score:1)
Re:WinMX is what Napster was... (Score:2)
Back in Napster's heyday (Score:1)
Like a planned Encore (Score:1)
They're Missing One Small Thing... (Score:2)
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!
what? lucky morons (Score:2)
Logs (Score:2)
Dead Presidents. (Score:1)
Re:so? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:so? (Score:1)
Re:so? (Score:1)