NAPSTER, which helped popularise online music before being shut down as a hub for piracy, is being relaunched as a legal website, its new owner said.
The "new" Napster, to be available in the United States October 29, will bear little resemblance to the original site, which had a following of as many as 70 million fans worldwide who were able to swap and download music for free.
The original Napster went bankrupt amid a flood of litigation from the industry. It was acquired last year by music software firm Roxio, which is relaunching it using a model employed by Apple Computer and others.
But the new site, dubbed Napster 2.0, in addition to offering a-la-carte downloads for $US99c ($1.40), will offer a $US9.95 monthly subscription allowing unlimited listening and downloading.
It also claims to have the largest digital music library in the world with over 500,000 songs.
http://www.napster.com/
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