Petteri Pyyny
15 Nov 2002 2:55
Roxio, the company behind Easy CD Creator, announced today that it will buy all Napster's assets for appx. $5.3M. Company will pay $5M in cash and appx. $350,000 in stock for Napster's assets that include Napster's domain name and trademarks.
Deal is still subject to U.S. bankruptcy court's approval which may delay the deal, but Roxio's reps said that both parties have agreed on price, so there shouldn't be any nasty surprises left. Roxio will buy all the assets, but is not assuming any of Napster's liabilities, including pending litigation.
Roxio's motivations are still slightly unclear, but the company has taken various steps towards media distribution during the last year or so. One such example is the fact that Roxio is one of the resellers of Pressplay, an online music subscription service. So, wild guess would be that Roxio will use Napster's name and domain to create a legal media distribution site based on its partners' media offerings.
Source: Reuters