Word: bertelsmann
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...Napster's college-student users, this pact means several things. First of all, we can expect that sometime in the next few months, all Bertelsmann content (like Santana and Christina Aguilera) will be pulled from the free Napster service and moved to a premium service. Expect to pay between $10 to $25 a month to subscribe. The rest of the songs on Napster will remain free, which leads us to two possible alternatives. Under the first alternative, the record companies will individually put up their own competing subscription sites, which will be so disastrous for everyone that the record companies...
...Internet for the distribution of all media, would have all music available through one site, for one low subscription cost. Napster, if it negotiates shrewdly with the music industry, is in the best position to provide this service. Yet, they already may have stumbled in this effort, as the Bertelsmann deal--in an arrangement typical of New Economy partnerships--includes provisions for Bertelsmann to make a significant investment in Napster. While on its face the investment option legitimizes Napster, it could create conflicts of interest for the company down the road. Why, for example, would Warner Music want to play...
...mainstreaming of Napster - and the capitulation of Big Music to the looming future of a music business without $15 plastic discs - began Tuesday with a surprise deal between the online free-music outlaw and German publishing giant Bertelsmann (home of BMG, one of music's Big Five). The upshot: Napster just changed the "free...
...show begins," said Thomas Middelhoff, chief executive of Bertelsmann. "We have to evolve Napster and make it the best service available to people who love music." By "best," of course, he means "best one that doesn't rob record labels of their marketing investment and artists of their royalties" - heck, BMG's (and the other Big Four's) suit against the Napster site is still on; a San Francisco judge's ruling is expected...
...Under the deal, BMG will pull out of the Napster case as soon as the company develops a for-pay version of the service that accommodates the rights of copyright holders. Bertelsmann will also chip in with a loan in the tens of millions - most of which will be sunk into developing song- and user-tracking technology, which is how royalties will be toted up - in exchange for options on as much as 58 percent of Napster...