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Rhapsody Rebrands Itself As Napster (thenextweb.com) 42

Posted by BeauHD from the tarnnished-reputation dept.
An anonymous reader writes: After completing its purchase of Napster in December 2011, Rhapsody has decided to rebrand itself as Napster. Rhapsody made the announcement on their blog, which states: "No changes to your playlists, favorites, albums, and artists. Same music. Same service. Same price. 100% the music you love. Stay tuned!" That's it. The company didn't elaborate as to why they decided to change their name now. Napster has made a name for itself as being a brand synonymous with illegal music downloads. It'll be interesting to what kind of effect, if any, this has on Rhapsody.
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Rhapsody Rebrands Itself As Napster More

Rhapsody Rebrands Itself As Napster

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  • Watch Out For Lars (Score:3)

    by zenlessyank ( 748553 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @04:52PM (#52318833)
    He ain't rich enough
  • Is Rhapsody that hungry for bankruptcy.
    They can't possible believe that taking the name of a defunct 18 year old filesharing service will lend them any street cred, can they?
    That's like Verizon renaming themselves AOL.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Napster wasn't a "filesharing service", it was a copyright violation service with ZERO usage for legal distribution.

      The company bragged about how they were ripping CD's by the hundreds of thousands.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by allo ( 1728082 )

        It was file sharing, which is commonly used for breaking the copyright of musicians.

    • SBC renaming itself ATT ?

  • "Napster has made a name for itself as being a brand synonymous with illegal music downloads."
    is that an intentional understatement or just plain ignorance?

    in contrast,
    "rhapsody" !?
    what's that? seriously!

    • Rhapsody has made a name for itself as being a brand synonymous with DRM encumbered music. Of course they would want to make it look like "free illegal music".
  • Cashing in on movie notoriety as Napster is the bad guy in that overly nostalgic movie about a piss stained shithole of a music store."All Things Must Pass". RIAA anti-internet freedom propaganda. http://www.towerrecordsmovie.c... [towerrecordsmovie.com]

  • It'll be interesting to what kind of effect, if any, this has on Rhapsody.

    No it wont. Rhapsody is already branded as Napster in all the other countries it operates in except for the United States.

    I didn't even know it existed as a Music Streaming service, and according to this [werockyourweb.com], is possibly even better than Pandora.

  • Napster: pay for music that you still won't own!

    seriously, these music streaming services are retarded.

  • I don't get it (Score:3)

    by dejitaru ( 4258167 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @06:19PM (#52319335)
    And I don't think they get it either. Napster was revolutionary because the ability to search and trade songs with people over the internet. Yes it was piracy, but it became essentially became an icon of "anti-music industry" and Anti-RIAA. And it seems people are still trying to profit by it, which I don't get how they think it will work.

    I mean I get it, there's some nostalgia to the name, but the name was related to a service that has long been dead. What customers are they trying to get? People in their 30s who remember the name and for some reason will flock to it because it reminds them of their teen/college years? Hardly i'd think. /rant

    • I got "dumped" into Rhapsody after the URGE store closed down (which arguably was excellently curated because at the time, MTV actually did some decent background write-ups about bands.)

      Trying to cancel with them is insane. You can't cancel online, but you have to call, be passed between people until you start demanding a supervisor, then "Can you cancel my subscription, if not, hand me to someone with that capability". It was an extremely unpleasant experience with multiple call attempts until it was don

  • It's 2016, so 20 years ago would've been 1996.... Damn I'm old.

  • Wrong term (Score:4, Funny)

    by CanEHdian ( 1098955 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @07:28PM (#52319605)

    Napster has made a name for itself as being a brand synonymous with illegal music downloads.

    Keep up with the times, Slashdot. We prefer the expression "undocumented music downloads" nowadays.

  • Adding "ly" to something seems to at least get the VCs wound up. I did a quick survey in the house - the 17 year old said he has heard of Napster, the 15 year old said "what's Napster?", the 13 year old said "whatster?" Not that Rhapsody is used by anyone in the house either - nor did it have any name recognition with anyone. Sounds DOA(ly).

    • Add and extra p and make it Napply and they can do some stylish word play on app to make it seem very new-computing hip.

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