Software maker buys Napster's assets

Thursday, November 28th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ Software maker Roxio bought the remaining intellectual property assets of the now defunct song-swap company Napster for just over $5 million in cash Wednesday.

The deal went through immediately following a Delaware bankruptcy court's approval.

Santa Clara-based Roxio, which specializes in CD-burning software, snapped up Napster's patents and brand name for the cash, plus $300,000 in warrants for shares of Roxio common stock.

Roxio officials haven't announced what they'll do with the file-sharing company's leftovers, though earlier this month chief executive Chris Gorog said Napster's intellectual property ``will expand our role in the digital media landscape and enhance our offerings to consumers.''

Roxio is not assuming any of Napster's liabilities. And Napster's remaining hardware _ servers, routers, computers _ remains part of the company's bankruptcy proceeding and will be auctioned off Dec. 11.

Napster was once the high-flying start-up of college student Shawn Fanning. He originally launched the service as a way to connect like-minded music fans so they could share songs for free over the Internet.

The free service worked like a charm and lured in heavy investing from German media company Bertelsmann. But the music industry saw Napster as theft and convinced a federal court judge to force the service offline.