Napster Co-creator Sean Parker Eyeing Warner Music Purchase?

BY Gregory AdamsPublished Mar 14, 2011

In a bizarre twist of fate, Sean Parker (the co-creator of peer-to-peer service Napster) allegedly has his eye set on purchasing the Warner Music Group. According to various media reports, the enterpriser/billionaire is on board with a handful of other investors to purchase the record company.

This would be a big reversal for Parker, whose Napster service threw the record industry on its head back in the late '90s/early 2000s. Back then, the peer-to-peer service had thousands uploading their music for the rest of the world to download, arguably starting the decline of the industry, if not kick-starting file-trading and illegal downloading into overdrive.

Napster did, however, go legit as a pay service in 2001. Since then, Parker has had a hand in the success of Facebook, as well as European streaming service Spotify.

Warner Music announced it was going up for sale back in January. It's expected that the company's assets will sell for over $2 billion.

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