Los Angeles – Napster Japan, the
music service joint venture between Napster, now a unit of Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), and Tower
Records Japan, will shutter at the end of May, Billboard reported.
The stated
reason was the fact that Napster did away with digital rights management (DRM)
restrictions, and such a model would be prohibitively expensive to operate in Japan.
Sources
also told Billboard that Napster Japan did not ever grow its subscriber base to
a profitable level, and that it suffered from a lack of willingness on the part
of some labels and Japanese artists to license their tracks to the service.
Napster Japan
launched in October 2006.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/unjuz
(Billboard)
