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What ensued was a painful, 20-year journey to regain what was lost. Recorded music revenues plunged from $24 billion in 2001 to $14.2 billion in 2014, and have since come roaring back, hitting $25.9 billion in 2021, the first year that industry sales surpassed the 2001 figure.
Yet discontent with the new system is boiling over. Last year artists including Sir Paul McCartney, Emile Sandé and Paul Weller, of The Jam, wrote to Boris Johnson demanding a regulatory overhaul. They claimed they were being “exploited”: musicians receive about 15 per cent of the income from streaming, with the rest being split among the streaming platforms and record labels. The musicians called for new laws to force streaming platforms and record labels to more evenly split revenues.
The question is whether Napster, a relic from another era, can be the vehicle to drive the next upheaval. For anyone over the age of 30, the brand resonates. For younger people, it will mean little or nothing. The younger generations will be far more familiar, however, with cryptocurrency and the concept of decentralised services that allow creators to connect directly with fans with digital items such as NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and virtual experiences.
It is up to Vlassopulos to thread that needle. More than $35 billion has been spent on digital items in the last two years, he said, but most of it has been on digital art or on digital sports highlights. Music has been a laggard. “If I put a gun to your head and said, ‘Name ten digital artists’. You’d probably die,” Vlassopulos said. “But if I said name ten musical artists, you’d live. We think there is a big opportunity to cut into that $35 billion. ”
When an 18-year-old Shawn Fanning launched Napster, the service famed for taking music piracy mainstream, in June 1999, the top song on the Billboard charts was Livin’ la Vida Loca. Mercifully, Ricky Martin’s ditty has long since faded into history. Napster, however, just won’t die.
Matt Zhang, a 37-year-old New York banker turned crypto investor, bought it in May, turning his $1bn investment firm Hivemind into the company’s fifth owner since the music industry bankrupted the business in 2002 under a mountain of lawsuits.
Zhang’s plan: to turn Napster into “a music super-app” for the “post-streaming era”. What does that actually mean? By transforming into an online concert venue, where people can attend virtual shows and buy digital swag from their favourite bands, paid for in a forthcoming Napster cryptocurrency.
Napster will, of course, still offer streaming. The company, which is based in London and was listed on the Aim exchange until Zhang scooped it up, has millions of people who pay $10 a month to listen to music. It is a distant competitor, however, to the powerhouses of Apple and Spotify. In the six months through last June — the company’s last set of public accounts — Napster lost £14 million on £33 million in sales.
Zhang’s bet is that more than 20 years after Napster launched the streaming era, the industry is once again at the cusp of a huge shift in its core business model, this time driven by the emergence of decentralised blockchain technology that enables a more direct relationship between artists and fans, and lubricated by digital currencies. “We’re not unique at all. There’s many better investors in the music space out there. But I think the timing is unique,” Zhang said. “The next paradigm shift of the music industry is in front of us.”
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Last week he hired British music executive Jon Vlassopulos as Napster’s new chief executive.
Vlassopulos was previously at Roblox, where he set up a music operation at the $22bn gaming giant. Amid Covid lockdowns, Vlassopulos lured top names such as the rapper Lil Nas X, who netted more than $10m selling digital goods to fans who attended a virtual concert he performed on the platform.
Zara Larsson, the Swedish pop star, brought in more than $1m selling outfits and customisable avatars inside Roblox. She told the BBC that to make a similar sum via, say, Spotify, “would take a long, long time and hundreds and millions of streams”. She added: “Streaming services don’t pay the most.”
It is impossible to overstate the seismic effect Naspter had on the music industry. Overnight, every song imaginable was free to download. Record labels and artists, led by Metallica’s Lars Ulrich and rapper Dr Dre, kneecapped Napster, but not the digital music revolution it unleashed.
there is an article in today's sunday times.it is behind a paywall ,so i'm not able to access it.if it contains anything of interest and anyone dan post details it would be appreciated.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/cathyolson/2022/09/25/former-roblox-music-chief-joins-napster-as-ceo-to-steward-its--evolution-into-web3/?sh=7238a38d4e1b bit more flesh on the bones.
https://musically.com/2022/09/26/napster-reveals-funding-web3-investment-arm-and-its-new-ceo/ need to read it carefully ,but clearly some sort of progress
glad to hear there has been some progress and particularly interested to see what they say about the crypto.
I have just come off a chat with the Halifax who have indicated that they have received the cash and will be paying into the accounts middle of next week. No indication of the currency translation rate at this stage. Also they are preparing a corporate note on how the crypto consideration will be dealt with when it happens. When I asked for timescales they said “soon” which somehow rings a bell with this share…..
A fortuitous side effect of the delays in Halifax getting the funds from Algorand is that in contrast with those paid in May with the pound at $1.26 getting £4.80 a share the current rate of $1.06 yields £5.72, an increase of 20%. That is assuming the Halifax did not receive the cash earlier.
evening offer.hope you are well.i expect you are fully up to speed(or at least as much as one can be given the lack of precise information) with the intention in due course for the new app (napster 3.0) to be launched and as i understand it the $napster tokens will be issued as part of the new app launch.if you haven't read the "litepaper" describing what it all means here it ishttps://www.napster.com/us/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2022/06/Napster-Litepaper-V1.pdf i use the word "means"ni a fairly loose sense, since i think a lot of what it says is actually pretty nebulous and possibly meaningless, couched in slightly self promoting grandiloquence.obviously my comment betray my inability to cope with recent technological developments and a lack of empathy for this field,so are probably very unfair. luddite is my middle name.anyway, regardless of what it all means, there doesn't seem to have been any substantive news since the litepaper was published at the end of june. the existing app has apparently been updated (not sure when as i don't have it), but i think that has just been tweaking of the existing product and problem fixes. how soon we will get 3.0 is not known. sorry if im just stating the already known,but perhaps other posters may have something to add.
The new app
Well it’s approaching a year since rage new app was delayed until early 2022, anyone know what’s happened to it
Hybrid
Have a look at my post of 19 May. I copied ii's message (almost) verbatim.
I made an error re payment 4 - should be $25m not $2.5m - which I later pointed out.
There has been nothing further from ii. We will probably be waiting on Algorand until March.
Thanks for confirming Iklekov / Albert.
Some time ago, I notice documentation had been posted to some shareholders with details of the acquisition. Can anyone confirm the content of such documentation?
srsacquiom.com has been very supportive and excellent communication. Will be providing all documentation and dates of transactions shortly as part of legal freedom of information request. This will clarify when settlements have been made to all parties. Which will also outline why initial payments are beeing withheld from shareholders. There clearly is an irregular anomaly with the likes of HL shareholders having been settled there initial payment back in May 2022.
Also SRS also provided the Napster correspondence email address for clarity which I am also in contact with awaiting response.
Also contacted Lloyds / Halifax for s reasoned explanation for undue delay and withholding shareholder initial payments.
What is interesting, is the official shareholding list seems to be missing my credentials, as a substantial shareholder, would it be possible that Lloyds/Halifax are holding shareholders funds/shares in non-segregated or amalgamated accounts (which is ilegal). These were not held as part of a trust or LLC.
As soon as I receive further feedback from all parties I will provide a further update.
HM
Yes AlbertPode, Interactive Brokers (IB) is not UK based (after Brexit) but this is not a problem - they fully operate on UK market and they work with CREST.
There has never been a problem with ii, Hybrid. They paid the initial tranche in May, as soon as they were able to.
Iklekov is with someone called IB. Reading his posts, they may not be UK based.
Hi Italian, lklekov,
I am sure all holders appreciate your reply’s. I still haven’t received a response from Halifax.
Contacting: support@srsacquiom.com
Should be the way to go as they are responsible for facilitating the payments, and should be able to confirm if the balance has been paid to the relevant brokers. This has certainly been the case for HL Months ago!! So what is the hold up with the likes of Interactive Investors and Halifax - if we can get SRS to confirm the balances have been paid to the brokers, then we can all be satisfied that we can press for answers.
I suggest all holders of shares, now all as a community, send SRS and their broker an email as a synchronised joint effort today/this weekend to have an explanation once and for all.
Payments should have been made 5 months ago!!
Iklekov,have you tried emailing srsacquiom for their take on exactly what they are waiting for before making payment? i emailed them back in april i think and had a pleasant and moderately helpful reply.i t might produce something you could copy to IB to prompt them into pushing matters. their email is "support@srsacquiom.com"
Thanks , I send I message every week! This is from yesterday :
Dear Mr. Lekov,
Our Corporate Action Department received below response from the depository.
All they can confirm at this point is that the company have contacted them and requested that the share is disabled and removed from CREST. They do not have any further information at this point and will contact us when they do.
Unfortunately, at this moment there no further information regarding this issue.
Regards,
CXXX
Interactive Brokers Client Services
what I understand is that all info to pass through the funds is available in the market (and the funds should also be received by IB a while ago (in fact all clearance agents should have received the funds at/around the same date)), but because this is a bit an unusual transaction and moreover, not many investors may hold shares in Napster, in my view IB simply puts it on the backburner and will only pay out once someone within IB make some time to dig into this. I'm not with IB but CS/Six SIS and neither received a penny yet. So keep on chasing them, it obviously takes too much time which is unacceptable.
I have the same problem with Interactive Brokers (IB) .
Nothing from them in my account.
From the communication with IB - nothing !
Anybody else in Interactive Brokers?
afternoon albert.i do keep checking to see if any news re napster token,but nothing since beginning of july.just have to be patient and keep an eye out for news.hope they don't run it right up to the last minute though.fingers crossed as always.
Hi Italian. Sorry about the lack of contact, but i guess Algorand are saving everything until March, so for now there is a lack of excitement also,
Matt87
Have a look at my post of 19 May. (excuse the 4th payment. Should be $25m not $2.5m as i pointed out earlier).
As Italian says there is no apparent reason for the non-payment of the initial $6.06/share,
At the risk of stating the obvious have a look at your account and at least make sure your shares are shown. It should be the new figure after dividing by 750. It will at least prove your entitlement to all the payments
you are welcome matt.it's a tad concerning to hear they have not yet received any payment.if it were me i would immediately ask for full copies of all communications iWeb have received from napster and srs acquiom on the matter, so that you can see exactly what they have asked for.also copies of iWeb's responses.i expect they will try and fob you off with rubbish about confidentiality etc and im by no means certain you are actually entitled to see them,but i cannot immediately see why not.you may get extracts if not the full detail(which is what i got from HL).i sense the platforms are reluctant to provide full details as they are unsure how to proceed (particularly with the crypto aspect).i can understand the uncertainty over the crypto element,but surely the provision of whatever the collection agents(acquiom) need must be relatively straightforward.good luck.
Thanks for clarifying.
I’ve just had a response from iWeb(Halifax), who have stated that they have not yet received a payment from the company.
Not sure what the next step should be for those of us who haven’t received the first payment?