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	This story was printed from dtheatre.com,
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Napster: Grasping At Straws
By Acheron, (DT)
February 21, 2001 10:23 AM PT

(E!) The end is nearing for Napster, at least in its current form. In what some would call a last ditch effort to achieving legitimacy, Napster offered $1 billion to record labels to drop their crippling lawsuits.

Per the proposal unveiled Tuesday, Napster would shell out $150 million annually over five years to the Big Five music companies--BMG, EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner--plus $50 million yearly to indie labels.

The RIAA has not accepted the offer yet.

"We all ought to sit down and settle this case as fast as we can," Napster CEO Hank Barry said Tuesday. "We're saying this is something consumers really want. Let's do something to keep it going."

- Lets hope they get something worked out. I've been saying all along that there's going to have to be some sort of out of court settlement. Otherwise, Napster doesn't have a bats chance in hell of winning the court case.

If you think about it, 10 bucks a month isn't a bad deal to get legitimate music. You just need to make sure that you download 10 dollars worth of music a month. My problem is that I won't necessarily have a reason to download 10 dollars worth of music. It creates a problem for the people that don't abuse the system.

Though a reasonable deal, I don't see Napster carrying the fan base that it once had. They're going to have to come up with an out of court settlement, otherwise they're almost guaranteed to lose out. My question is: where are they getting the $1 billion? How are they making money now? How are they staffing their company, when there is no visible source of income(no banner ads, service payments, stock, etc)? Sure they've got CDNow sponsorship now, but they didn't when Napster became more than a one man operation. Anyone know?