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Photos: Behind the scenes at Napster UK
Photo 1: Outside the Napster UK office
On a busy street a stone's throw from London's Oxford Street are the Napster UK headquarters. Napster has been running an online music subscription service in the UK since May 2004, but is probably better known for its more dramatic past.
The original Napster was a file-sharing service that allowed people to access each other's MP3s. At its peak in 2001, Napster is thought to have had 26 million users worldwide, but soon afterwards it was forced to shut down, after a series of legal battles with record labels over copyright infringement. The company was relaunched as a legal download site in 2003, and has since then grown its subscriber base to over 500,000.
Last month, Napster reported a loss of $9.8m on revenues of $28.1m for the first fiscal quarter of 2006, and chief executive Chris Gorog told analysts that he would not rule out a sale of the company. Despite this gloomy announcement, the Napster UK execs that Crave met on a recent visit were in high spirits.
Crave spoke to the vice president and programming director of Napster UK to find out about the service, what they think of their competitors and the future of digital music.
Credit: Ingrid Marson/CNET.co.uk
