BitPass was an American company that from 2002-2007 that developed an

online payment An e-commerce payment system (or an electronic payment system) facilitates the acceptance of electronic payment for offline transfer, also known as a subcomponent of electronic data interchange (EDI), e-commerce payment systems have become increa ...

system for digital content and services including

micropayment A micropayment is a financial transaction involving a very small sum of money and usually one that occurs online. A number of micropayment systems were proposed and developed in the mid-to-late 1990s, all of which were ultimately unsuccessful. A s ...

s. It was founded in 2002 by Kurt Huang and Gyuchang Jun. One of its best-known projects was the Mperia

online music store A digital music store is a business that sells digital audio files of music recordings over the Internet. Customers gain ownership of a license to use the files, in contrast to a music streaming service, where they listen to recordings withou ...

catering to unsigned artists. The company shut down in 2007.

History

Kurt Huang 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 ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

''White, Elizabeth (28 January 2004)
Innovating bit by bit
''

Palo Alto Weekly The ''Palo Alto Weekly'' is a weekly community newspaper in Palo Alto in the U.S. state of California. Owned by Embarcadero Media Foundation, formerly Embarcadero Media, it serves Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton, Portola Valley, Stanford, E ...

'' 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 Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support E-commerce payment system, online money transfers; it serves as an electronic alter ...

, the

Royal Bank of Scotland The Royal Bank of Scotland Public Limited Company () is a major retail banking, retail and commercial bank in Scotland. It is one of the retail banking subsidiaries of NatWest Group, together with NatWest and Ulster Bank. The Royal Bank of Sco ...

and

First Data First Data Corporation was a financial services company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The company's STAR Network provides nationwide domestic debit acceptance at more than 2 million retail POS, ATM, and at online outlets f ...

. 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 ''VentureBeat'' is an American technology website headquartered in San Francisco, California. ''VentureBeat'' is a tech news source that publishes news, analysis, long-form features, interviews, and videos. The ''VentureBeat'' company was fou ...

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, such as access control technologies, can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. DRM ...

features were permitted. Artists kept 70% of each track's revenue. In 2004, Mperia partnered with

CD Baby CD Baby, Inc. is a Portland, Oregon based online distributor of independent music. The company was described as an "anti-label" by its parent company's Chief Operating Officer Tracy Maddux. It was established in 1998 and offered distribution fo ...

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 Scott McCloud (born Scott McLeod; June 10, 1960) is an American cartoonist and comics theorist. His non-fiction books about comics, ''Understanding Comics'' (1993), '' Reinventing Comics'' (2000), and '' Making Comics'' (2006), are made in comic ...

about micropayments and Bitpass {{DEFAULTSORT:Bitpass Payment systems Digital currencies Companies based in San Mateo, California American companies established in 2002 Failed financial technology companies 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