Napster is back, again: Why a new incarnation might avoid past failures

In 2025, all manner of businesses market themselves as “AI companies”: banks, HR software, and tax filing services. But perhaps you did not expect a vestige of the late ’90s—one as synonymous with the era as TLC’s “No Scrubs”—to be reborn as an AI company. And yet, Napster, which began as a peer-to-peer file-sharing program so popular it spurred a lawsuit from Metallica, is back once again, with a new AI-focused mission.