Roxio to Acquire Napster

The U.S. Federal Bankruptcy Court gave a "thumbs up" on Wednesday to Roxio, Inc.'s petition to purchase the intellectual property and assets of the now-defunct file sharing company, Napster, for $5.3 million and 100,000 warrants of Roxio stock. Compared to the $9 million bid that German media company, Bertelsmann, had offered last year for Napster that was previously rejected by the Bankruptcy Court, Roxio's winning bid appears to be a good bargain. Roxio has technology for a music subscription service that is owned by several major recording labels and is known as "Pressplay." Roxio reportedly has reached agreement on a music licensing deal with EMI Records, a major music label. While Roxio has not stated publicly what its plans are for Napster's file-sharing software, Napster's peer-to-peer software could help Roxio to offer its own music subscription service.