In 1999, Napster emerged as the biggest threat to bottom lines in the history of recorded music; eventually, it became part of the music industry, turning into a subscription music service owned by Best Buy. Now, like seemingly everything the music industry touches, Napster is dead after officially merging with Rhapsody. The deal was signed last month, so the die for Napster has long been cast. It's possible that many people thought Napster was already finished after its turn-of-the-century heyday, when it became a staple of dorm rooms across the country as the most accessible conduit for a massive digital music land grab. Best Buy mostly traded on the name in Napster's final years, though even the name lost value. Still, who knows how many MP3s illegally downloaded on Napster all those years ago are still floating around in hard drives and burned CDs? Until the last MP3 copies of Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water are deleted, Napster will continue to live on. [via Mashable]
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