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New Napster bossman

Hilbers to oversee legitimisation of music site

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German media exec Konrad Hilbers has been announced as the new chief exec of Napster. He'll take over from Hank Barry, the man brought in as interim head just over a year ago when VC Hummer Winblad put $15m in the company.

Konrad Hilbers is a suit through and through. But with a fair bit of experience at running both music and Internet companies. Most recently he was VP of Bertelsmann's music arm but he's also been COO of AOL Europe, VP of CompuServe in Germany, CFO at a publishing house and on and on.

Hank Barry appears to have been written up as a martyr for the Internet cause due to his heading up Napster over the difficult legal period. In reality, however, he is a lawyer who was protecting an investment.

Napster already is a corporate company and its loss has already been mourned. However, the hiring of Hilbers is a clear sign that Bertelsmann is taking Napster very seriously and aims to use it as a major in-road into the future of online music. ®

Plenty of related stories

Appeal Court says Napster can go live again
Napster appeal deadline set
Napster to ditch MP3 for proprietary format
Napster bends over and takes it from Metallica
Napster down until futher notice
Napster still down
Napster in a coma
Napster signs up UK indie labels
Napster signs away its soul
Napster nears deals with music industry

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