Napster chief executive resigns

Napster's chief executive Konrad Hilbers has resigned.

The move came after the company's founders refused to be bought out by Bertelsmann. Mr Hilbers was a veteran with the German media company.

He was installed as Napster chief executive after the two firms agreed a strategic partnership in November 2000.

Bertelsmann has since extended about £60m (€96m) in loans to Napster, but the company has failed to generate revenue or launch a paid service.

The song-swap service has been offline since last summer after failing to meet guidelines handed down by a federal judge.

The ruling required it to keep all copyrighted music from being freely traded over its network.

It has vowed to come back as a subscription-based music download service that can generate royalties, but the situation for the company has got even bleaker since its service went down last year.

The five major record labels - BMG, EMI, AOL Time Warner, Sony and Universal - have all launched subscription services in response to the demand for music downloads that Napster created.

The five have also refused to settle their ongoing copyright infringement case against Napster. Each of them - including Bertelsmann subsidiary BMG Entertainment - remain plaintiffs in the case.