Buy it in a store, laser scan it at home, upload it to the web, print it anywhere. 3D printing is poised for the mainstream, but what happens when one person’s finely hand-crafted designs can be pirated and reproduced by anyone? Will 3D printing piracy social networks arise? And how will manufacturers lobby to stop them? → Read More
On stage at Disrupt NY 2013 today, serial investor Ron Conway and filmmaker/actor Alex Winter took the stage with CrunchFund’s MG Siegler to talk about the documentary Downloaded about the rise and fall of Napster. Ron Conway described being an early investor (his Angel Investors fund put around $500,000 into Napster, he said) and how the process of taking them through the ordeal went. One of the… → Read More
Anyone who has had a computer and a connection to the Internet in 1999 quickly knew what it felt like to find any song that you wanted, and then listen to it almost immediately. Well, the immediate part wasn’t true, since you had to download the MP3s, which usually took quite a bit of time on a dialup connection. Since Napster, and it getting sued into oblivion (and then acquired for bits… → Read More
Monday, we sat down with Rhapsody President Jon Irwin to get a little more insight behind why the company bought fellow online music service Napster. As part of the acquisition, Rhapsody acquired all Napster subscribers and other IP assets from Napster owner BestBuy. Meanwhile, Best Buy received a minority stake in Rhapsody.
Irwin tells us he looks forward to bringing the Napster subscriber… → Read More
Music streaming services are are becoming a dime a dozen, and that’s before we factor in the expected launch of Apple’s own cloud music offering. Today, Best Buy-owned Napster, the Old Skool player of yesteryear (by brand name only) has unleashed its mobile apps here in the UK.
Like Spotify, We7 and a raft of European and U.S. music streaming services, Napster Unlimited plus Mobile, available on… → Read More
Sean Parker is no stranger to Internet success. He’s 28 years old and has already helped start four very well-known services on the web: Napster, Plaxo, Causes, and of course, Facebook. And now he’s taking his impressive resume to Yammer, where he is joining the enterprise microblogging service’s Board of Directors, we’ve learned.
Yammer, which won the top prize at last year’s TechCrunch50… → Read More
Squeezebox owners: You can now access Napster music right from your your WiFi boombox. → Read More
Best Buy will be acquiring Napster for around $121 million as the two companies have announced they’ve “entered into a definitive merger agreement” for Best Buy to scoop up all of Napster’s outstanding shares at $2.65. The deal will include all 700,000 Napster subscribers, Napster’s web-based platform, and key employees. Best Buy already has a digital music initiative that’s powered by… → Read More
Best Buy announced today that it has acquired Napster for $121 million in cash. The company said that it will keep Napster’s executive team and will leave the Napster service and its estimated 700,000 users in place without changing much in the near-term.
During the 2008 fiscal year ending March 31, Napster had revenue of $127.5 million, and a loss of $16.5 million. The loss was an improvement… → Read More
AppleInsider has posted details about a patent recently filed by Apple that describes technology for playing iTunes content from a desktop computer remotely on an iPhone or iPod touch. The new software would load only meta data about songs, videos, and other media onto a handheld device. It would then allow users to stream this media from their desktop computers on demand and even let them… → Read More
Streaming music service Rhapsody has joined the likes of Wal-Mart, Amazon, and Napster by launching an MP3 store. Its move to offer unprotected music downloads has been anticipated since last Fall when Real Networks joined forces with MTV and Verizon. The Rhapsody MP3 Store offers music from all four major labels (Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group, and EMI) at 99 cents per single… → Read More
Napster’s had it up to here (pointing near the top of my head) and wants to regain its position as the King of Online Music. The new Napster web store opened its doors today and features six million DRM-free tracks, most for 99 cents apiece and most full albums for $9.99, according to Reuters. You can still opt for subscription pricing at around $15 per month if you have a Napster-to-Go… → Read More
Napster just announced that they are now selling their entire catalog of 6 million songs for $0.99/each, no DRM. And for some reason I’m having trouble getting excited about it (CNET, however, has more than enough excitement for both of us, saying “This is a huge day for digital music.” Whatever.) The fact is that Napster is still unprofitable and still makes most of its revenue… → Read More
Eliot Van Buskirk was sick — sick! — of paying for music download services. Now that Amazon is DRM-free and offers lots of music, he decided to cancel all of his music subscriptions. Yahoo was the easiest at about 1 minute but it took him 30 minutes to cancel Napster and 10 minutes to cancel Rhapsody. This reminds me of trying to cancel my XBox Live and MS SPOT subscriptions. Microsoft… → Read More
Sorry for the delay, folks. I was busy fondling my Kindle yesterday and seemed to have left this one slip through the cracks. AT&T and Samsung announced the SLM yesterday, which is the first phone to feature Napster Mobile. On top of that it also has video share (3G!), stereo Bluetooth, and a 2-megapixel camera. Internal memory is a bit skimpy at only 50MB split between media and photos. The… → Read More
Hey, hipsters! Put down your hacky-sacks for a few minutes and hear me lay down this smack! AT&T (the “Fun Network”) and Napster (“The service you used to steal all your music from”) are teaming up to offer 5 million songs over the air for $7.49 a month for 5 songs per month or $1.99 per single. What’s that, cool kittens and kiddios? That’s too much for a… → Read More
AT&T have announced that their wireless customers will soon be able to download songs from Napster Mobile. Starting mid-November, the service will allow AT&T customers to browse 5 million songs, preview samples of each song and purchase and download music from their mobile phones. Unlike a previous deal where some AT&T customers had free access to Napster, under this deal users will… → Read More
Word is that Napster is dumping their desktop client and relaunching with a fully web based client as part of an effort to broaden their reach. Customers will be able to listen to their music over the web on any computer after signing in. The new web client will make it possible to join a slew of other online music services in creating embeddable music widgets to push their product and become… → Read More
Napster is rolling out its over-the-air (OTA) music service on Japan’s NTT Docomo. The service lets Napster To Go subscribers download music onto compatible cellphones (so far, the 904i series). All songs downloaded onto cellphones can then be transferred to compatible music players and PCs. Can iTunes do that? This is fun and all, and something many people wish the iPhone would be able to… → Read More
You’d think that with 5 million music services already in the works that Circuit City and Napster would think twice about teaming up. No such luck. The company will sell subscription services — essentially Napster — for $14.95 per month. The chain will probably sell a co-branded player which will probably fail. Circuit City, Napster to offer joint music service [Reuters] → Read More
In a conference with Cingular/AT&T about their new service, Video Share, a mobile-to-mobile video chat service reminiscient of video chat in Europe. The service is rolling out this summer. The best part? They’re partnering with WWE and Napster for some video and music hotness. Also, we’ll be seeing a new phone from Apple – something called the iPhone – officially… → Read More
Starting April 1, AT&T customers will have access to over three million songs through Napster To Go for an entire year, free of charge. This service applies to wireless handset users with the right plan as well as customers who have home phone and broadband triple-pack bundle services. What makes the deal even sweeter than the year of free service is the ability to stream music to a handful of… → Read More
Napster is one of the oddest companies. It is a deeply unprofitable startup trying to grow a business, and with a huge war chest of cash. We have the rare ability to see deep into its financial situation because it is publicly held. Napster sells music subscriptions and the odd DRM’d download. Pay $10 per month and listen to any of the music in their library. This is a tricky, low margin… → Read More
Back when pirating music was in vogue, a guy named Shawn Fanning made a little program called Napster. It enabled P2P file sharing and piracy to skyrocket in less than a year. So after Shawn sold Napster, got some cash, and got sued, he apparently sat down and got really into this game you may have heard of: World of Warcraft. Fanning is now working on a social networking site called Rupture… → Read More
A representative for Shawn Fanning called TechCrunch today to make it clear that the social networking site that the Napster founder plans to launch next year will indeed be compliant with World of Warcraft’s (WoW) terms of use. BusinessWeek reported that Fanning, the founder of Napster and Snocap, is in the development stages for a new social networking site called Rupture. The site will… → Read More
Music download and subscription service Napster announced that they’ve hired an investment bank to assist them with a sale of the company earlier today. This move was “in response to recent third party interest in establishing strategic partnerships or potentially acquiring the company.” At first glance the company looks very healthy, with annual revenue of over $100 million and… → Read More
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