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Best Buy tuning out of digital music service Napster

The Canadian Press Published Tuesday, October 4, 2011 8:13AM EDT

Nguyen Nguyen, 20, of Houston, sits next to his tent first in line outside of a Best Buy store in The Woodlands, Texas on Thursday, Nov. 25, 2010. (AP Photo / The Courier, Eric S. Swist)

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SEATTLE - Best Buy is tuning out of Napster, a digital music service that struggled to evolve from its renegade origins as a free file-sharing network that riled the recording industry.

Napster's subscribers and other assets will be sold to another digital music service, Rhapsody, as part of a deal announced Monday.

Best Buy Co. will get an undisclosed stake in Rhapsody after the swap is completed. The exchange is expected to be completed by end of November.

The deal ends Best Buy's efforts to groom Napster into a brand that would have broad appeal to shoppers buying gadgets at its nearly 1,400 stores. Best Buy, which is based in Richfield, Minnesota, bought Napster for $122 million in cash in October 2008.