Roxio Reportedly Buying PressPlay
Roxio Near Deal for Pressplay Music Venture - Sources
By REUTERS
LOS ANGELES ( Reuters) - Roxio Inc. (ROXI.O) is near a deal to buy the online music service Pressplay from its owners, Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, sources familiar with the situation said on Saturday.
The deal, which would bring one of the two online music services backed by the major record labels under the control of the company that bought what remained of Napster at bankruptcy auction last year, could be announced as early as Monday, the sources said.
Representatives of Universal, Sony and Roxio were not immediately available for comment.
The initial value of Roxio's offer for Pressplay was about $30 million, in cash and stock, a source familiar with the situation said.
Roxio, which makes software for recording music on CDs, has said it was planning to launch a new Napster-branded online music service this year and has hired Napster's founder Shawn Fanning as a consultant.
The company bought the rights to Napster's name and technology for just over $5 million in November last year.
The record industry forced Napster's closure in July 2001 through lawsuits that blamed its hugely popular file-sharing network for aiding the illegal piracy of copyrighted music on the Internet.
But in the nearly two years since Napster was shut down, the record industry has struggled to find a broader audience for its own fee-based alternatives, Pressplay and Musicnet.
Pressplay is a 50-50 partnership between Sony, a unit of Japan's Sony Corp (6758.T), and Universal Music, which is owned by Vivendi Universal (V.N)(EAUG.PA).
In a March filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Universal said it had lost $30 million on Pressplay and said that under the terms of the venture both sides had agreed to spend up $50 million to cover operating losses.Computer Inc. (AAPL.O) has been a strong success in its first few weeks and won praise for its simple pricing and operation.
Apple said last week it had sold more than 2 million songs at 99 cents each through its iTunes Music Store in just over two weeks, a figure analysts said easily topped the traffic on the label-sanction services, such as Pressplay.
By REUTERS
LOS ANGELES ( Reuters) - Roxio Inc. (ROXI.O) is near a deal to buy the online music service Pressplay from its owners, Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, sources familiar with the situation said on Saturday.
The deal, which would bring one of the two online music services backed by the major record labels under the control of the company that bought what remained of Napster at bankruptcy auction last year, could be announced as early as Monday, the sources said.
Representatives of Universal, Sony and Roxio were not immediately available for comment.
The initial value of Roxio's offer for Pressplay was about $30 million, in cash and stock, a source familiar with the situation said.
Roxio, which makes software for recording music on CDs, has said it was planning to launch a new Napster-branded online music service this year and has hired Napster's founder Shawn Fanning as a consultant.
The company bought the rights to Napster's name and technology for just over $5 million in November last year.
The record industry forced Napster's closure in July 2001 through lawsuits that blamed its hugely popular file-sharing network for aiding the illegal piracy of copyrighted music on the Internet.
But in the nearly two years since Napster was shut down, the record industry has struggled to find a broader audience for its own fee-based alternatives, Pressplay and Musicnet.
Pressplay is a 50-50 partnership between Sony, a unit of Japan's Sony Corp (6758.T), and Universal Music, which is owned by Vivendi Universal (V.N)(EAUG.PA).
In a March filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Universal said it had lost $30 million on Pressplay and said that under the terms of the venture both sides had agreed to spend up $50 million to cover operating losses.Computer Inc. (AAPL.O) has been a strong success in its first few weeks and won praise for its simple pricing and operation.
Apple said last week it had sold more than 2 million songs at 99 cents each through its iTunes Music Store in just over two weeks, a figure analysts said easily topped the traffic on the label-sanction services, such as Pressplay.
Comments
Time will tell. If EZ CD Creator is their idea of friendly, though...
It's simple. Microsoft and Apple both control High Volume OS. That is "a license to print money" Roxio has CD Burner Software which already exists in generic form from within the respective OS. They are mistaken. I'm not buying WM format for music.
Originally posted by hmurchison
Roxio is insane if they think the name "Napster" is going to elicit anything.
In a lot of people's minds, Napster = free; those people are going to be pretty shocked when they find out it's $19.95/month.
The real question in my mind: Will Roxio keep Pressplay as a subscription (rental) service or will they switch to a sales model to head off competition from iTMS?
Originally posted by wmf
In a lot of people's minds, Napster = free; those people are going to be pretty shocked when they find out it's $19.95/month.
The real question in my mind: Will Roxio keep Pressplay as a subscription (rental) service or will they switch to a sales model to head off competition from iTMS?
well, we'll find out come MARCH.