Napster, the reformed music site, caught its major rivals, including Apple, unawares with its launch in Britain. With a multi-billion industry involved, Rhys Blakely looks into this latest development in the online music business

What is Napster?

Previously the scourge of the legitimate recorded music industry, Napster began life as a pirate website in 1999, the brainchild of Shawn Fanning, a 19-year-old American college drop-out.

At its height, Napster’s first incarnation had more than 60 million users who swapped hundreds of millions of music tracks on the internet, and all for free. With critics claiming that it threatened to bring about the collapse of the music industry, Napster was forced to close in 2001 after the major record labels successfully sued for copyright infringement.

However, a new, legitimate Napster has this week been launched by the US software house, Roxio.

What is different about the new Napster?

It is the first internet music store to launch in Europe – other online music providers, such as OD2, the European market leader, work in partnership with separate retailers.

Where the old Napster was illegal and free because it cut the record companies out of the loop and users shared tunes between themselves, the new version is legal because users pay for the music they download, which comes from the record companies, who receive a fee.

Why haven’t I heard about this before today?

The launch was a closely guarded industrial secret.