Whatever remains of “Napster” has been sold off for the umpteenth time to a media company that you’ve never heard of for $207 million, continuing the legacy of a filesharing service bringing the music industry to its knees before imploding. Launched originally in 1999 as the most successful of the peer-to-peer file sharing services, Napster was crushed by lawsuits and shut down in 2001, and filed for bankruptcy a year later. Still, assets remained, and a corpse with a known name can have juice in Silicon Valley. So in 2003, its branding and logos were snapped up by Roxio at the bankruptcy auction, the same company that then rebranded the doomed iTunes rival Pressplay with Napster’s more well-known name. That was then sold off to Best Buy in 2008 for $121 million, which then merged it into Rhapsody, which phased out the brand in favor of Napster yet again. In 2020, this was sold to MelodyVR, a virtual reality concerts company. Given that’s a clearly stupid idea with no juice, it was then sold yet again to Hivemind and Algorand, which are Web3 and blockchain companies. That went about as well as you’d expect, hence the recent sale. The buyer this time is Infinite Reality, a company focused on “3D and AI-powered experiences,” which sounds about right. All I’m saying is that for the past two decades, an industry buying Napster has been god’s way of telling you that you make too much money.
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