Napster is back, but this time it’s betting on AI: “We don’t want the outcome to be similar to the last time around”
Back in the day, you were either a Limewire kid or a Napster kid. Both sites enabled the legally dubious practice of downloading free MP3 files.
However, the most infamous site out of the two was undoubtedly Napster. Founded by Sean Parker back in 1999, the website always maintained that its hosting of MP3s was legal under "fair use."
The slew of lawsuits the site faced suggests otherwise. The Recording Industry Association of America, Metallica, and Dr Dre were among those who sued Napster for copyright infringement. In turn, as the years have passed, these lawsuits have become Napster's legacy.
Under new management
However, Napster is now under new management. It was bought by tech commerce company Infinite Reality for $207 million back in March, and as of last month, it has officially relaunched—but things are looking a bit different this time round.
Rather than focusing on MP3 files, it is now a conversational AI platform. The site consists of a number of "AI companions" that are trained to be experts in various topics like medicine, public policy, architecture and engineering.
To create these avatars, Napster Chief Technology Officer Edo Segal told Fast Company that the platform utilized frontier AI models from OpenAI and Gemini to make a new "large persona model" that is trained on 30 different psychometric characteristics.
Does anyone care?
Still, back when Napster's acquisition was announced, Redditors weren't exactly inspired by the news. One asked: "Napster is still a thing?"
Another simply said it "sounds dumb," while a third yearned for the old Napster, saying, "The streaming industry could really use a major competitor that pays artists decently, but I doubt this is that on both accounts. If they were reviving the old Napster then fuck yeah let's go."
Elsewhere, a fourth opined: "Why does every company continue to iterate towards social platforms?! F**k that. Reduce it all back, just be good at one thing, I don't want more social hubs, and I'm not watching concerts in my VR headset, I shoot zombies."
Despite these doubters, Napster is continuing to go full speed ahead, with Segal adding: "There was a lot of controversy around what Napster did, but you can’t argue it wasn’t user-focused. At a time like this, with AI’s profound impact on society, it’s useful to have a brand with a north star that puts the user first...That’s the important lesson to take. Obviously, we don’t want the outcome to be similar to the last time around.”
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