A spokesperson for Napster has said that the firm believes that the “freemium” streaming model used by companies such as Spotify is not sustainable and there is therefore no future in such companies.

They also aired their disdain towards Apple Music in a statement: "In terms of Spotify, there is no evidence that their 'freemium' business model is sustainable, as their numbers for the last two years show.

"We take a localised approach to music suggestions, tapping into the culture of every market to make sure we're surfacing the most relevant music for our members regardless of where they live. No one person in LA or London is telling Napster users what to think is cool."

The comments seem ironic from a company that had its hey-day back in the early 2000s with illegal file sharing and later less success with paid downloading. Their recent comments about companies that are actually doing reasonably well at the moment seem to be a last-ditch attempt to garner some publicity and in my opinion makes them sound rather on the bitter side.

The company insists that the nature of their company means that they are free to focus "exclusively on music" because it is not under any pressure to "sell ads or hardware".