Napster Rivals Up the Ante

Napster rival J. River has reportedly offered the big five record companies a $3 billion deal to allow access to their vast libraries of music, according to a recent Newsbytes report. Last week Napster offered a $1 billion settlement payable over the next five years to the companies. J. River reportedly plans on offering a subscription service based on Media Jukebox technology, which they say has already had 1 million downloads. A survey done by the company suggests that as much as 48% of those users would pay $10 a month for the service, which is expected to grow up to 50 million users over the next five years. For more information visit J. River at www.musicex.com.