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Merger Of The Also Rans: Rhapsody Buys Napster

from the too-late dept

Mon, Oct 3rd 2011 8:07pm — Mike Masnick

With so much attention paid to the new generation of music subscription offerings, Spotify, Rdio and Mog, it appears that the last generation, Napster and Rhapsody, decided the best course of action was to join forces in bitterness at the fact no one mentions either of them any more. The two companies have gone through a variety of different owners over the past decade or so, with Rhapsody being spun out from RealNetworks last year, and Napster being under the Best Buy umbrella for a while -- where almost nothing was done to build up the service. I recognize that the two companies may be annoyed that no one cares about them any more, but I really can't see either establishing enough of a presence to get back into the conversation.

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Filed Under: mergers, music, subscription
Companies: best buy, napster, rhapsody

11 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 3 Oct 2011 @ 8:28pm

Rhapsody is probably just grabbing Napster to see if their combined assets might be worth more to sell than either individually. Look for Rhapsody to try and sell off all its assets, whatever's left of them, in the coming months.
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DerekCurrie (profile), 3 Oct 2011 @ 9:14pm

Zero + Zero = Zero
Why bother to pay anything for Napster? After the RIAA killed them, they became nothing but a lame RIAA puppet shop. And someone wants to pay for that? Really Real? Is this a form of suicide?
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princefeliz (profile), 3 Oct 2011 @ 9:36pm

Re: Zero + Zero = Zero
I Concur.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Oct 2011 @ 9:40pm

Re: Zero + Zero = Zero
Regardless of how little we may think they matter, they still have customers and subscriber information is hella useful. The article mentions that Napster still had 700,000 subscribers when Best Buy bought them out. Combine that with Rhapsody's database and that's a decently substantial chunk of people.
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NotMyRealName (profile), 3 Oct 2011 @ 11:11pm

Re: Re: Zero + Zero = Zero
Thats about half a percent of internet users, just in north america. Worthless, especially considering that we live globally now, like it or not.
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

And subscriber info? like what, names linked to email addresses? I could probably get a valid list of 1,000,000 sorted by net income, in a few days for less than a few hundred bucks. maybe even legally.
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Jon, 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:36am

Not true...
...this is a case of THE ALSO RAN STRIKES BACK!
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Oct 2011 @ 5:44am

Rhapsody
I've had a good experience with Rhapsody. Spotify was getting into Facebook, and I don't know where else. I didn't know what it was doing; it seemed to be running all the time instead of when I wanted it to.
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David (profile), 4 Oct 2011 @ 11:46am

Re: Rhapsody
I also liked Rhapsody, but found I was not using it much. I have changed to Spotify, and recently became a premium member. I like their Android integration better than Rhapsody's...

It is possible to turn off the Facebook announcement of your playing Facebook's favorite song: "Ooops, I did it again", and when it comes to the always running thing, clicking close on the program closes it's window, but you can completely close the program by selecting Exit from the File menu...
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Casey, 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:06pm

You're forgetting....
That Rhapsody has the most paying subscribers of any music subscription service in the USA. Combined with Napster, they will have an even larger lead. Rhapsody also has the largest music library for American subscribers, and supports the most devices. They offer a decent MP3 store, making them by far the most complete service in comparison to Spotify.

The fact that this news is spreading across most major tech sites proves that people are at least still interested in hearing about Rhapsody. I would argue that if RDIO or MOG were buying Napster, it wouldn't be spreading near as much.

I don't think Rhapsody is going down anytime soon.
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froonium, 4 Oct 2011 @ 1:55pm

What to call em?
Rhapster now? Considering the direction they seem to be going, I'm gonna go with Napsody.
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Gary Lentz, 21 Oct 2011 @ 1:16pm

Napster/Rhapsody
I am sad to see that Napster is going away! I am happy that it appears Rhapsody will be around for awhile. I have been a subscriber to both services for several years and have purchased ablums and tunes from my youth (50's & 60's).

I wish Rhapsody luck!
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