Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Napster Brand Lives On, Sold To MelodyVR

The remarkably long lived Napster brand--which was founded during the Dot Com boom as a peer-to-peer music swapping startup in Los Angeles in 1999--continues on, and has been sold to virtual reality experience company MelodyVR, in a deal worth $70M. The acquisition of the brand is not the first for Napster, which was acquired by RealNetworks/Rhapsody Networks in 2011; Rhapsody Networks renamed itself to Napster in 2016. Prior to the acquisition by Rhapsody Networks, Napster was owned by Best Buy, which bought the brand in 2008; and prior to Best Buy, was owned by Roxio, which acquired the Napster name out of bankruptcy auction in 2002. The original Napster service--famous for being a peer-to-peer, illegal MP3 swapping service--was bankrupted by a lawsuit with the RIAA in 2002.