In an interview with Germany’s Die Welt newspaper, Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Middelhoff said that infighting among Napster’s shareholders, specifically John Fanning and Hummer Winblad, is holding back the deal.
John Fanning is the uncle of Napster’s teenage founder and the original poster boy of peer-to-peer computing, Sean Fanning. Hummer Winblad is the venture capital firm that invested in Napster in 2000. John Fanning is engaged in a lawsuit against Hummer Winblad over the nature of the latter’s shareholdings.
Contrary to some media speculation, Bertelsmann has not disclosed the size of its offer.