NAPSTER CAR FOR SALE June 27 2000 dotmusic.com Shawn Fanning, the co-founder of MP3 sharing company Napster, is selling his car. And you can buy it on auction site eBay. The flashy roadster is a white 1995 Mazda RX-7 Twin Turbo, manual transmission, with 36,000 miles on the clock. According to the auction description, it was put up for sale because "the care is no longer practical (only seats two) - anyone attempting to fit a third person on the storage containers behind the seats knows what I mean". Interested buyers may be surprised to learn that Shawn has not installed an MP3 player in the car. In fact there's not even a CD machine; instead of digital audio you'll have to make do with a plain old cassette deck. The seller's handle is "I'm Napster", referring to the fact that, long before he invented the file-sharing application, Shawn Fanning was nicknamed Napster. Fanning is alleged to have used "Hi, I'm Napster" as a chat-up line while frequenting local bars and nightclubs. Napster have not confirmed that the auction was initiated by Shawn Fanning or that the car genuinely belongs to him. However, Fanning's correct e-mail address and company phone number listed as contact info. Even though the Napster Mazda potentially represents a slice of music history, the bidding has not exactly been fast and furious. This is in fact the second time that Fanning's car has been up on eBay; last time there were no bidders at all. This time there have been 7 bids, but at the time of writing the reserve of $23,500.00 had not yet been met. With $15 million in funding, one would suspect Shawn Fanning could still afford to run a car. Could he be trying to cash in on the Napster phenomenon? If so, what next? Shawn Fanning signature sportswear? comment on this article e-mail this to a friend start a discussion [about i-drive] writing index thoughts dotmusic index musicbank index Problems? Questions? Suggestions? Contact me: mail@tobyslater.com back to top back to home page

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