BitPass was an American company from 2002-2007 that developed an online payment system for digital content and services including
micropayments. One of its best-known projects was the Mperia
online music store catering to unsigned artists.
Background
Kurt Huang
Kurt Huang is co-founder, president, and chief product officer of BitPass. He has a Computer Science degree from Harvard and an MD from Stanford.
Named to the 2004 list of the world's 100 Top Young Innovators by MIT's Technology Review magazine. ...
and Gyuchang Jun founded BitPass. Michael O'Donnell was brought on as CEO in 2004, but left by April 2005, and was eventually replaced by Doug Knopper in November 2005.
[(16 November 2005)]
After a long wait, a new CEO at BitPass
''San Francisco Business Times''
Although the origins of the idea for the company dated back to 1999, the company incorporated and got off the ground with $1.5 million in joint venture funding led by Garage Technology Ventures in late 2002. The first test version of the product was launched in June 2003.
[Tedeschi, Bob (21 July 2003)]
'' The New York Times''[White, Elizabeth (28 January 2004)]
Innovating bit by bit
'' Palo Alto Weekly'' In late 2004, a second funding round of $11.75 million was announced.
[Napier, H. Albert, et al]
Creating a winning E-business
p. 171-72 (2d ed. 2006) ()
For the content buyer, Bitpass worked like a pre-paid telephone card: the buyer signed up for the service and put money into an account using a credit card or PayPal. This stored-value amount could be used to purchase digital content or services. Transaction fees were paid by the content provider. For payments under $5, the charge was 15% of the price paid by the buyer (Bitpass Professional merchant account fee). BitPass also partnered with major technology and financial services companies such as
Microsoft,
PayPal, the
Royal Bank of Scotland
The Royal Bank of Scotland plc (RBS; gd, Banca Rìoghail na h-Alba) is a major retail and commercial bank in Scotland. It is one of the retail banking subsidiaries of NatWest Group, together with NatWest (in England and Wales) and Ulster Bank ...
and
First Data.
On January 19, 2007 Bitpass announced that they were shutting down, and operations officially closed on January 26, 2007.
[(19 January 2007)]
Bitpass croaks — is this the end of micropayments?
'' VentureBeat''
Mperia
Mperia was an online music store founded in 2003 by BitPass to use the BitPass payment system. Launched by Huang and Joshua Ellis, it was aimed toward allowing independent musicians to sell their music online.
Artists could upload their own music directly, and could price their own music, with tracking costing between US$0.25 and US$1.50. No
digital rights management
Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures (TPM) such as access control technologies can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. ...
features were permitted. Artists kept 70% of each track's revenue.
In 2004, Mperia partnered with
CD Baby
CD Baby, Inc. is an online distributor of independent music. The company was described as an "anti-label" by its parent company's Chief Operating Officer Tracy Maddux. The CD Baby music store was shut down in March 2020 with a statement that "C ...
to sell tracks from CDBaby's catalog.
With the shutdown of BitPass, Mperia also shut down in early 2007.
[Vitka, William (20 January 2007)]
Mperia, Bitpass Shutting Down
''New York Post''
References
External links
Bitpass site- article by cartoonist
Scott McCloud about micropayments and Bitpass
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bitpass
Payment systems
Digital currencies
Companies based in San Mateo, California
American companies established in 2002
Financial services companies established in 2002
Financial services companies disestablished in 2007
Mperia
Mperia
Defunct online music stores
Defunct digital music services or companies
2002 establishments in California
Defunct online companies of the United States