How is the Napster deal going...?

Well there isn't much news around napster lately. Bertelsmann is still making a new napster service.
This is what Wired News says about it:


FRANKFURT -- German media giant Bertelsmann said on Monday it had begun talks with other music majors on a business model for its song-swap partner Napster and was hopeful they would join the ground-breaking alliance.

"It's all worked out. We have a model," Bertelsmann eCommerce Group chief executive Andreas Schmidt said. "We are bringing it forward now to the other parties ... hearing their concerns, getting their input."

ADVERTISEMENT

Bertelsmann shocked its fellow music industry giants last month by signing an alliance agreement with maverick Napster, at the same time offering to abandon a lawsuit brought by five big music companies against the Internet site for copyright infringement.

So the case against napster still continues...


But Bertelsmann, which has agreed to drop its lawsuit against Napster once its business model for the service is implemented, believes it can convince the other music majors to join the alliance as well.

"I am optimistic that in the end all of them will join," said Schmidt, whose eCommerce Group division of Bertelsmann is leading the Napster alliance.

And for the people who have missed it all... these are the plans:


The envisaged business model will transform Napster into a membership-based, file-sharing service rather than an online song-swap company, though Schmidt declined to give details while the talks with the other music groups are underway.

But he cited a recent study which showed that 80 percent of Napster users would be prepared to pay a membership fee of up to $15 a month to use the service.

ADVERTISEMENT

Bertelsmann management board member Klaus Eierhoff said the new Napster business model would be a success even if only a minority of existing users converted to the new service.

"Even if only 30 percent of the existing more than 40 million Napster users were to accept the new business model, that would be a success," he said.

Though he added that Napster would retain its original community philosophy. "They are an independent company ... it's not about dominance or taking over."

I don't think many people will like the new construction in wich you have to pay for napster. But i think Bertelsmann has a great vision on the market doing this... either way THEY always win

ADVERTISEMENT

No posts to display