Napster in Microsoft talks

Napster talks to Microsoft to create new service

The online song-swap company Napster is talking with Microsoft amongst others to help it create a fee charging service that pays royalties to artists and record labels.

"Napster has been talking with Microsoft, along with a number of other technology companies, about how several of their products might be incorporated into the new Napster service. Those conversations are ongoing," the spokeswoman said on Friday.

Microsoft was not able to comment.

Napster has said it hopes to launch its new service, which it is developing with German publishing group Bertelsmann, by summer.

User figures

Napster Chief Executive Hank Barry said on Thursday that recent reports of Napster's demise were greatly exaggerated.

Usage reports have claimed sharp declines as the service tried to filter out copyrighted songs to comply with a 5 March court order.

Mr Barry said the site still attracts about 8m people per day.

Webnoize had reported earlier in the week that the number of files traded on the Napster had fallen from a peak of 2.79bn in February to 1.59b in April.

Napster's service had attracted over 60m users who could swap songs for free using MP3 files, a compression format that packages music in small digital files.

The world's major record labels, Vivendi Universal, Sony, Warner, EMI, and Bertelsmann's BMG first sued Napster in December 1999, claiming copyright infringements were costing them billions of dollars in lost sales.