What a long, strange trip it’s been for Napster. Best Buy Co. said Monday that it has signed a deal to acquire Napster for $54 million, giving Best Buy an opportunity to compete head-on with Wal-Mart for market share in the online-distribution channel. The deal marks the mainstreaming of Napster. When the online music file sharing service was initially released in 1999 it sent shock waves through the music industry. Allowing people to share MP3 song files for free? Egad. The original Napster was shut down by court order but blazed the trail for decentralized peer-to-peer file sharing programs.
