Will it outrun its previous controversy?

Back within the day, you have been both a Limewire child or a Napster child. Both websites enabled the legally doubtful apply of downloading free MP3 recordsdata.

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However, essentially the most notorious web site out of the 2 was undoubtedly Napster. Founded by Sean Parker again in 1999, the web site all the time maintained that its internet hosting of MP3s was authorized beneath “fair use.”

The slew of lawsuits the location confronted suggests in any other case. The Recording Industry Association of America, Metallica, and Dr Dre have been amongst those that sued Napster for copyright infringement. In flip, because the years have handed, these lawsuits have grow to be Napster’s legacy.

Under new administration

However, Napster is now beneath new administration. It was purchased by tech commerce firm Infinite Reality for $207 million again in March, and as of final month, it has formally relaunched—however issues are trying a bit totally different this time spherical.

Rather than specializing in MP3 recordsdata, it’s now a conversational AI platform. The web site consists of a variety of “AI companions” which are skilled to be consultants in varied matters like medication, public coverage, structure and engineering.

To create these avatars, Napster Chief Technology Officer Edo Segal instructed Fast Company that the platform utilized frontier AI fashions from OpenAI and Gemini to make a brand new “large persona model” that’s skilled on 30 totally different psychometric traits.

Does anybody care?

Still, again when Napster’s acquisition was introduced, Redditors weren’t precisely impressed by the information. One requested: “Napster is still a thing?”

Another merely stated it “sounds dumb,” whereas a 3rd yearned for the previous 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 continuous to go full velocity forward, with Segal including: “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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