Snoopstar, a file-swapping service that was beta tested this month, is seen as a possible backup if Napster is shut down. Bertelsmann is the current owner of Napster.
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Snoopstar is an easy-to-use interface that enables users to search for music, videos and other files in different file-sharing services, including Bertelsmann's partner Napster, Gnutella and iMesh.When Snoopstar became available for beta-testing in early February on the Web site www.snoopstar.com, only a few specialist Webzines noticed. Now the site has been reduced to a single page that says the beta-test is over.
According to Net-Business, the domain "snoopstar.com" (along with the more telling "snoopster.com") was registered by Matthias Runte, an executive of BeCG, Bertelsmann's e-commerce subsidiary, which made a deal with Napster last year. The company behind it, also called Snoopstar.com, is 75 percent owned by BeCG. Its CEO is Andreas Schmidt, who is also CEO of BeCG, Net-Business said. The purpose of the company, as registered with the authorities, is "to develop, market, license and operate an Internet search machine for all media ... that allows [people] to search a number of file-sharing programs for files." Snoopstar's offices are in Hamburg, Germany, at Millerntorplatz 1, where a number of Bertelsmann e-commerce companies reside. Napster CEO Hank Barry told Net-Business he wasn't aware of Snoopstar, but he added, "There is a great chance that Napster will just be shut down, so I don't have a great problem with Bertelsmann ... pursuing a file sharing arrangement." |
Napster will never die !
Source: TheStandard
