Company Ownership History
The original eMusic was started in March 1995 by Mark Chasan as the fourth online CD retailer. eMusic and Nordic Music (owned by Kent Kiefer) formed a joint venture in February 1998 to become the first digital media retailer and sold the first MP3 players on the internet. eMusic, then headed by Chasan and Kiefer, purchased Guy Giuliano's internet radio service GBS Radio Networks. The new consortium launched the first online radio network LoudRadio, to broadcast over a terrestrial radio station via KLOD-FM in Flagstaff, Arizona.
The company now known as eMusic was founded by Gene Hoffman, Bob Kohn and Gary Culpepper on January 8, 1998 and originally named GoodNoise Records. In October 1998, GoodNoise acquired eMusic.com along with on-line music pioneer Internet Underground Music Archive (IUMA). In November 1999, eMusic acquired main rival Cductive and in December 1999 acquired Tunes.com, which operated Rollingstone.com and DownBeatJazz.com. Then in 2001, the major label Universal Music (then a division of Vivendi Universal) bought eMusic.com for USD 24.6 million.
In November 2003, the service was purchased from VU Net USA by a New York-based private equity arm of JDS Capital Management, Inc. Following a contentious period during which information disseminated by the company was limited, it was relaunched in 2004. Relaunch was soon followed by a new format for the eMusic site, significant increase in both editorial and music content and an eventual price increase for most subscription levels. Commensurate with this relaunch, David B. Pakman became the CEO of the company until leaving in November 2008.
Read more about this topic: Good Noise
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