Napster, the online music service that brought the music industry to its knees, was today relaunched in the UK as a legitimate service in a move that record labels hope will revitalise sales. The move by Roxio, the company that bought the Napster brand and employed dotcom whizzkid founder Shawn Fanning as a consultant, took the music industry by surprise.
The relaunch was welcomed by major record labels, which blame piracy and online file sharing for a disastrous drop in global sales. This has led to an unprecedented round of blood-letting at companies including EMI, Warner Music and Bertelsmann-owned BMG, with hundreds of redundancies and scores of artists dropped.
