Best Buy buying Napster

In a week where the financial markets are plunging into chaos, here's some weird news: Best Buy has decided to gobble up online music venture (and, in many ways, arch-enemy) Napster Inc.

At $2.65 a share, Best Buy is paying about double today's market value for the company. The total price is $121 million, a pittance in the world of billion-dollar mega mergers.

Napster is, of course, one of the most storied names in the digital music universe. After its launch as a personal project from developer and college student Shawn Fanning in 1999 and its famous shutdown in 2001, the company emerged from bankruptcy in 2002 and was purchased by Roxio, which rebranded its pressplay service as Napster. Roxio moved in 2004 to sell off its software division and focus exclusively on online music, and the company renamed itself Napster Inc. In 2005 Napster began trading publicly as NAPS, but the stock never cracked $10 a share and was in the $1 a share range as of last week; the service, of course, looks nothing now like it did back in '99.

Will Best Buy be the final chapter in the life of Napster? Something tells me that it won't... This is a brand that just won't die.

Best Buy already offers a digital music program in conjunction with RealNetworks' Rhapsody service. It's unclear whether much of Napster's technology will survive the merger: Best Buy will likely try to port the 700,000 Napster customers over to the Rhapsody service, which is an unlimited music service that's actually pretty similar to Napster already. Reports say that the company is also eying its online customer service and mobile capabilities, but that's about it. Napster as it exists today is probably headed for the scrap heap.

I think I know the answer to this already, but I'll ask it anyway: Napster customers, how does this make you feel?