After years of supplying people nationwide with free music before record companies wanted consumers to get it, Napster has been shut down. According to MTV, last week Judge Peter J. Walsh of the US Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware stopped a sale to its chief investor. The judge says Bertelsmann AG, tried to fend off any buyers for the depleting company by placing a bud for the company at $92 million dollars. Though they placed their bid at $92 million they were only planning to pay $8 million for it because they were said to already put $85 million into the company.
Konrad Hilbers, CEO of Napster and Shawn Fanning, the founder of Napster (he began the company as a freshman in college) and forty two other employees were laid off. “Napster is disappointed with the bankruptcy court’s decision not to approve the sale of the company’s assets to Bertelsmann,” Konrad Hilbers said in a statement. “As with most startup technology businesses, Napster’s technology is of little value without the talented team that created it, so it is an occasion of loss on many levels.”
