Napster just sold for $207 million
The once-iconic music-sharing platform Napster just sold for $207 million, according to reporting by CNBC. A company called Infinite Reality ponied up the cash. What could Napster offer in 2025 to warrant such a price tag? Infinite Reality CEO John Acunto says it'll be used for marketing in the metaverse. In other words, a platform from 1999 will be used as part of a technology that seemingly peaked in 2021. That sounds about right.
More specifically, the company plans on creating virtual 3D spaces for music fans to attend concerts and listening parties, in addition to creating a sales platform for musicians and labels to sell merch. This isn't the worst idea in the world, as attending these kinds of shared events is probably my favorite aspect of VR.
'When we think about clients who have audiences — influencers, creators — I think it's very important that they have a connected space that's around music and musical communities,' Acunto said. 'We just don't see anybody in the streaming space creating spaces for music.'
Napster holds numerous licenses to stream millions of songs, which is what made it an attractive prospect to Infinite Reality. The company says its version of Napster will 'disrupt legally.'
Current Napster CEO Jon Vlassopulos says that the purchase will allow artists to create 'crazy environments that are really only limited by their imaginations.' As an example, he described a reggae artist who might enjoy a virtual beach environment. Acunto adds that it'll be like 'Clubhouse times a trillion.' He's referring to the virtual events app that became popular during COVID, but eventually petered out.
Infinite Reality has been on a buying spree the last couple of years. In addition to Napster, it purchased the Drone Racing League, the metaverse marketing platform Landvault and the VR shopping platform Obsess.
As for Napster, it started in 1999 and took the world by storm, creating an easy-peasy way to steal music. It only took a couple of years for mounting legal battles to catch up to the platform and it declared bankruptcy in 2001.
However, that was just the beginning. The software company Roxio purchased the platform in 2002 and relaunched it as a legitimate e-commerce venture that sold digital music files. In 2008, Best Buy came calling and scooped it up. The retail giant only held on to Napster for a few years before selling to Rhapsody in 2011.
Rhapsody tried to make Napster a household name in Europe for the next decade before a consortium of blockchain companies, led by Hivemind and Algorand, bought it in 2022. These companies had plans to do some kind of NFT-based nonsense, because 'music x web3 is one of the most exciting spaces.' That didn't work and, well, here we are. Here's to another 25 years of being passed around like a hot potato.
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