Music Pioneer Napster Sells For $207 Million (cnbc.com) 24
Infinite Reality, a 3D technology company, has acquired Napster for $207 million, the companies announced Tuesday. The deal aims to transform the once-notorious music sharing service into a metaverse platform.
Napster, launched in 1999 by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, was the first major peer-to-peer file-sharing application before legal battles forced its closure in 2001. Since 2016, it has operated as a subscription streaming service. Infinite Reality plans to create virtual 3D spaces where music fans can experience concerts together and artists can sell merchandise.
Napster, launched in 1999 by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, was the first major peer-to-peer file-sharing application before legal battles forced its closure in 2001. Since 2016, it has operated as a subscription streaming service. Infinite Reality plans to create virtual 3D spaces where music fans can experience concerts together and artists can sell merchandise.
Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
I swear I'm shocked that not only was Napster still around, but somehow was still worth $200+ million. They haven't been relevant for like 20 years.
Re: (Score:2)
I assume this is purely for the name to use as nostalgia bait for Gen X and Millennials. (DAE remember the late 90's?, that was a great time right?)
Re: (Score:2)
I assume the same, but "Oh Honey..." just no.
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Informative)
I swear I'm shocked that not only was Napster still around, but somehow was still worth $200+ million. They haven't been relevant for like 20 years.
It's probably worth looking into the rabbit hole of hands the brand has went through over the years.
Back in 2005ish, a company with that name attempted to go legit, selling DRM'd WMA music downloads. They were also pretty innovative in that they were the first company to sell a music subscription service, where you could spend $15/month and download everything you wanted, as long as you synced up your player once a month to reset the timer on it (Slashdot decried the practice at the time, but what happens when you don't pay your Spotify bill in 2025, and how would you implement that in the pre-smartphone era? ...basically this).
The single biggest issue they had was that they weren't compatible with iPods, which meant that their target demographic were the handful of folks that had players from Creative Labs, iRiver, and Samsung, who were also willing to pay a subscription for music despite Limewire being fully operational at the same time.
After that venture imploded once the iPhone showed up on the scene, and Windows Mobile (also compatible with DRM'd WMA files including N2G) lost pretty much all of its market share in a year or two, the company got bought out by Rhapsody. Rhapsody pursued a bit more indirect revenue stream, making deals with cable companies for music streaming channels, and in-store music systems akin to Muzak of the 80's; their direct-to-consumer subscriptions were a bit of a niche. They coasted on that for a bit, keeping the Napster name on the books, possibly a few patents and contracts, but largely sitting on it and focusing on the Rhapsody branding. Rhapsody had a mobile streaming app in the early days, but they were never able to get the general appeal that Pandora did, and later Spotify.
I hadn't heard from either company in years, having lost track of them...but Napster had a much longer lifespan as a legitimate music service than it did as the gateway to copyright infringement for the masses.
Re: (Score:2)
I still have a Napster MP3 player, which did well with WMA, and it did well with MS Edge, which came around in the mid-2000s, and ironically, was a pretty good subscription service. I still have a Zune from that era somewhere as well. The Napster MP3 player which was a freebie for a subscription wasn't bad, and lasted on a daily basis throughout my run in college.
It is funny how all that entire ecosystem withered and died within a few years due to smartphones.
Re: (Score:3)
Seriously, $207 million for a domain name that most people under 40 have never heard of?
Re: (Score:2)
Great question.
Made me wonder if Napster holds any intellectual property or technical infrastructure that is the real purchase, rather than just the brand.
The report came out on CNBC at https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/2... [cnbc.com]
Here are key comments :
Napster holds official licenses to stream millions of tracks, agreements that were attractive to Infinite Reality.
And Algorand’s background [the current owners] in blockchain technology was intriguing to Infinite Reality, which also develops Web3 technology.
Alongside streaming music, the combination with Infinite Reality will allow Napster to offer more social features, digital merchandise and shopping.
Who knows? If the new owners can make it work the way they envision, good for them. Seems risky though.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm even more shocked anything called metaverse is still around and has $200 million to spend on anything.
Re: (Score:2)
We all thought the same thing. I'm just wondering if it was Metallica that bought it. ;)
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect the article was written in a hurry by someone with only a fleeting idea of what Napster is.
Napster went bankrupt decades ago, and the rights to the name and logo were bought by one of the earliest (maybe the earliest) all-you-can-eat music streaming services Rhapsody. Rhapsody ultimately renamed itself to Napster and I believe that's what was sold today.
Rhapsody being sold for $207M is a pretty big deal, but it's not someone investing $207M in an old peer-to-peer unpaid music distribution platform
Napster September College Networks' Meltdown (Score:4, Interesting)
Working IT at a small private college in '99. That summer we saw a few users of Napster but mostly it was the IT staff using it, in between the daily Doom and Halflife arena fights at lunch time.
And then the students returned to the dorms in late August.
Our fractional T1 external connection soon melted down and we were scrambling to set up traffic shapers and get new networking in.
On the plus side, Administration finally cut loose with funds so we could update IT infrastructure.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like my college too. Maybe the same one? /s
I wouldn't urinate on this site... (Score:2, Funny)
$200 million?! (Score:2)
Napster was 24-6 years ago, grandpa! (Score:2)
Nobody knows what Napster is, try buying Crunchyroll and turn it into a 3D experience.
The Pioneer is Napster? (Score:1)
Peer to peer also was around much prior to that as well though Napster was popular for its time due to the bandwidth of nearly maxing up POTS dial-up internet speeds or if your lucky for the times had DSL and / or cable (side note: still the case in many areas today) and internet adoption or to use tough business speak the penetration* of users on the internet increased greatly for the U.S.A. during that time (footnote: * The degree to which a commodity, f
Re: (Score:2)
Peer to peer also was around much prior to that as well though Napster was popular for its time due to the bandwidth of nearly maxing up POTS dial-up internet speeds or if your lucky for the times had DSL and / or cable
Knapster (linux port) and my very first cable modem (a whole 1Mb/s IIRC). Those were the days!
While I do remember that fondly, now that we have Bittorrent and various popular trackers it is easy enough to find whole albums in lossless quality, and 4K video, to download quickly on my now 1Gb/s cable modem.
Nostalgia, meet progress. These are the days!
Anyone told Lars yet? (Score:1)
"Napster bad!"
Second Life meets iTunes? (Score:2)
It isn't the Napster we remember.. (Score:2)