Following Napster’s acquisition in the US last year, Rhapsody has now bought the German and UK divisions of the company too.
Rhapsody President Jon Irwin said the demand for subscription music was on peak, and there is a huge potential for growth – as Napster brought music to the ‘masses’ creatively.
Irwin added through editorial programming, and strategic partnerships strengths, they wished to bring music to a whole lot of users
Rhapsody will not do away with the Napster label, owing to its established reputation.
Irwin added the acquisition of Napster in the two companies gives them an ideal entry to the European market.
In the UK market, the revamped Napster with the backing of Rhapsody, would be aiming to give Spotify a tough time.
In 1999, Napster was developed by a 19-year-old, in order to enable sharing of MP3 files on the web for free.
The company’s reputation was marred by legal cases and it had to go off for a while before being back in 2003, when it was bought by Bestbuy for $121m.
