Napster the brand is going legit under new owner Roxio Inc.
Now Napster the person is trying to do the same with an Internet start-up that could, once again, have far-reaching impact on the music business.
Napster creator Shawn Fanning is looking for backers of technology he’s developing that would let file-sharing networks distribute music without violating copyrights, people familiar with the project said.
Fanning’s technology would recognize copyrighted songs on a network and let the copyright owners set a price for downloading them.
That’s quite a departure from the original Napster service, which let users copy songs from each others’ computers free. Bearing the then-18-year-old Fanning’s online nickname, Napster launched in 1999 but quickly drew a copyright infringement lawsuit from major record companies and music publishers, which forced it to shut down in mid-2001.
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