Napster's journey from rogue online song-swapping service to the corporate world looks close to completion after Germany's Bertelsmann said it had made an offer to buy out the company's other shareholders.
Bertelsmann made an investment in the business in October 2000 in return for warrants giving it the right to a stake at a later date.
In an interview with Germany's Die Welt newspaper, Bertelsmann chief executive Thomas Middelhoff said: "Our solution now is to completely take over Napster. We want to buy out the original shareholders. We have made them an offer, because we believe that our strategy is the right one for the future of the company."
Mr Middelhoff is reportedly ready to spend up to $30m (£20.8m) to acquire the service. Bertelsmann has extended loans to Napster of about $85m since it decided to back the business.
Bertelsmann was among the group of music majors that filed lawsuits against Napster over copyright infringements. The German company broke ranks with the other four large recording industry firms and allied with the San Francisco company with the aim of relaunching it as a legitimate business. The service faces ongoing litigation from EMI, Sony, Warner and Universal Music Group.
The service flickered back to life for a limited trial in January after more than six months offline to comply with a court order. A full members' service is planned and negotiations on licensing music from the five big recording companies are ongoing.
Before being shut down, Napster, founded by 18-year-old college drop-out Shawn Fanning, had attracted 85 million registered users downloading as many as 3 billion songs a month.
In the Die Welt interview, Mr Middelhoff said the priority was to buy out venture capital group Hummer Winblad and John Fanning, the uncle of the founder. Hummer Winblad and Mr Fanning are in a legal dispute over the division of funds from the sale of the company, which is holding up the acquisition by Bertelsmann.
A Bertelsmann spokeswoman declined to comment any further.
Napster will relaunch into a very different market. While the service has been parked in cyberspace the music establishment has launched its own online ventures, allowing internet users to download files for a fee.
Bertlesmann is preparing for a possible stock market listing and is looking for acquisitions in Europe's television market.
