Goes Legit this Week!From
Napster, the worldwide phenomenon that pioneered the idea of free music sharing on the Internet, returns to life this week after being forced by the courts to shut down in 2001.
It's not the same old Napster that started the whole file-swapping hoopla, but a legitimate service hoping to attract paying customers.
Software manufacturer Roxio (Easy CD Creator) paid $5 million to buy the Napster name in bankruptcy court, and an additional $40 million for the struggling Pressplay fee-based music subscription service last year. Pressplay shuts down Tuesday — its estimated 100,000 subscribers and purchasers of a new Samsung "Napster" MP3 player will be among the first to test Napster 2.0 when it launches Thursday — and the rest of the public will be invited later in the year.