Jari Ketola
26 Feb 2001 14:16
After Napster had it's $1 billion offer to the record industry turned down, a small little-known dot-com company made its own $3 billion offer.
Of course the company, Minneapolis-based J. River, doesn't have a dime of the amount it's offering. The offer is based on the projection that millions of users are willing to sing-up and pay for a service like Napster. J. River assures that it should be able to pay the $3 billion over five years for rights to offer copyrighted music available through it's service.
Even though the bid probably isn't one to take seriously, it's clear that the recording industry can't hold back much longer. They have to start licensing their music for digital distribution. The only remaining questions are where and how.