Online music site Napster is to postpone the launch of its revamped music swapping service by up to nine months, Napster's chief executive, has told the German edition of the Financial Times- FT Deutschland.
Mr Konrad Hilbers told the paper the delay was forced after music labels balked at licensing Napster to make available the wide variety of titles for download it required.
"I cannot start with the amount of titles that the music companies are offering us. We would disappoint our customers," Mr Hilbers is quotes as saying.
Napster had planned to relaunch this week with a paid membership model. But major record labels have launched alternative music site such as MusicNet and pressplay with little success.
At its peak, Napster had 60 million users, but was derailed by a US court injunction in July last year because of copyright infringements.