Adult website eyes Napster crown jewels

A porn company has made a bid for the Napster trademark and domain name.

Private Media Group, a publicly traded adult entertainment website based in Spain, said on its site that it is keen to get its hands on Napster's assets.

The company explained that it had offered to acquire the Napster trademark and Napster.com internet address for one million shares of Private Media common stock, valued at about $2.4m.

Private Media chief executive Charles Prast said that copyright infringement is a major issue in the online adult entertainment industry, and that a deal with Napster would stop this.

"Along with Hollywood and the recording industry, we have become increasingly concerned about the level of copyright infringement inherent in the free peer-to-peer file swapping services," he said.

Private Media plans to use the Napster trademark to offer millions of adults worldwide the ability to swap adult-oriented content for free and to gain access to "top quality" content at a reasonable price.

"Private Media has high standards, both from a regulatory and financial perspective, with a 37-year track record of legal compliance," said Prast.

"It owns the largest library of quality adult content in the world, global rights to all its content, and has strong technological know-how.

"All of these factors make Private Media uniquely suited to manage a viable and legal peer-to-peer network for consumers of adult content."