What IS Napster up to under its new ownership? The company’s latest announcement was of a revamped app “built entirely around AI-generated content and real-time creation tools” with “no traditional record-label catalog”.
Yes, Napster has dived headlong into the GenAI waters, swapping its traditional catalogue out in favour of “AI-generated music across every genre, mood, and personal preference” plus AI-generated podcasts.
It’s also fair to say that CEO John Acunto’s interview with Rolling Stone this week makes no bones about Napster cutting its ties to the traditional music industry.
“Major labels have been a suppressant and a problem in people owning their content, owning their data, and I think they’re continuing to be a suppressant. So we just don’t really have an interest in having a relationship with them,” he said. “We don’t think that the future of music involves the labels anymore… The old label model is dead.”
Napster reportedly still owes royalties to some of those labels, and has been sued by both Sony Music and SoundExchange over those issues.
The attitudes of rightsholders seeking payments from Napster seem unlikely to soften given the rhetoric of its CEO, even if he did also say “we at some point look to repair the relationships with major labels”.
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