CNET continues:

MP3.com was once the standard-bearer for digital visionaries looking to the Internet to undermine the power of the traditional music business. By offering free online storage space and access to any band, signed or not, the company and founder Michael Robertson hoped to create a new distribution mechanism that would expand how people got music and what kind of music they listened to.

Robertson did succeed in winning the enmity of the major record labels, who sued the company for tens of millions of dollars when he launched a service that allowed people online access to music they owned. But the rise of Napster and file-swapping did as much to eclipse MP3.com's star.

With free access to major label and other music available through Napster, people flocked to it and other trading networks instead. Robertson ultimately sold the MP3.com property to Vivendi Universal, which maintained the unsigned artist database but used the company's technology to launch Pressplay, the digital music subscription service co-owned with Sony Music Entertainment.

After a corporate shakeup, and the realization of mounting debt, Vivendi lost interest in maintaining money-losing digital assets. It sold Pressplay to Roxio to let it run Roxio's new Napster service. MP3.com is one of the last music assets to go, following the sale of digital music company Emusic to a New York investment firm last month.

CNET Networks representatives said the company aims to augment its position as a provider of interactive content through the acquisition, with plans to enter the online music market through MP3.com. However, a company representative said the revamped site would not compete with music download services such as Napster. Instead, the company plans to turn MP3.com into a source of information for digital music.