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Shawn Fanning (the Napster guy) is back.

Fausto

Elite Member
Meet "Snocap".

swapping services, the outlines of a partial truce are emerging that may soon see major record labels partner with peer-to-peer networks to create legal online music stores.

At the center of the detente is Napster creator Shawn Fanning, whose new company, Snocap, has spent the last year building technology designed to identify music on file-swapping networks and turn free song trades into purchases. The company plans to emerge from stealth mode by the end of the year and has already secured licenses to the song catalog of the Universal Music Group.

Fanning's technology is designed to work behind the scenes of other companies' services, rather than directly replacing either file-swapping networks like Kazaa or today's download stores such as Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store. But several companies are already planning to use the technology, which could allow peer-to-peer networks to become online stores that sell music legally, much like iTunes.
I see this catching on....really, I do. 😛
 
I fail to see how this works.... you download music, then they try to sell it to you after they know you already have it? 😕
 
unless it's cheaper than the current click-and-download mp3 stores, i can't see this working.

unless it's significantly cheaper, who wants to install two programs to download music when they can go to iTunes.com or whatever other mp3 stores are coming out?
 
😕
ok, so the program is installed on your computer unknowingly 😕. you, johnny downloader, downloads a song from kazaa, bearshare, or winmx. the program snowcap figures out you downloaded the song and charges you for it. is that what is going on?
 
The way I'm interpretting is:

Right now, say I own a legal copy of an MP3 and I share it on Kazaa. You can connect to Kazaa and download the MP3 from me without paying anything. SnoCap would integrate into Kazaa so that you could download it from me after paying some third party for it. Essentially it's the same as downloading the song from iTunes or Napster 2.0, except your download sources are now peers on a P2P network.
 
Do you think that this is supposed to create revenue or even help the music industry? NO! This is to toss in more legality to using p2p. The man is a genious. By doing this he will breathe life into p2p's fight in the court's. This isn't about money its about him getting back at the RIAA by "helping" them.
 
Originally posted by: Xionide
Do you think that this is supposed to create revenue or even help the music industry? NO! This is to toss in more legality to using p2p. The man is a genious. By doing this he will breathe life into p2p's fight in the court's. This isn't about money its about him getting back at the RIAA by "helping" them.

Interesting take on it. My first reaction was to assume that the business model was given the thumbs-up as being iTunes but without having to pay for the bandwidth.
 
Originally posted by: TipsyMcStagger
sounds kinda dumb

why would anybody want to pay to download a possibly flawed version of a song from someone else

Really, what is the point? Why would you go through the whole search process which can be a huge pain in the ass sometimes, download it without knowing for sure what kind of quality you are getting (or hell, it may not even be the song at all or completely unlistenable), and pay for it when all you have to do is hop on over to iTunes?
 
I guess it's for people who download a sh!tload of music from Kazaa, and then become born again Christians and want to go legit 🙂
 
Originally posted by: UglyCasanova
Originally posted by: TipsyMcStagger
sounds kinda dumb

why would anybody want to pay to download a possibly flawed version of a song from someone else

Really, what is the point? Why would you go through the whole search process which can be a huge pain in the ass sometimes, download it without knowing for sure what kind of quality you are getting (or hell, it may not even be the song at all or completely unlistenable), and pay for it when all you have to do is hop on over to iTunes?

On top of that, you would be selling bootlegged copies. Electronically, but still an illegal copy. If giving away (sharing without profit) is illegal, imagine selling it: Jailhouse Rock.
 
someone steal my idea:

A BT like network of LEGAL mp3's. Share ratio based on subscription fees (i.e. $5 = 5GB or 5.0 ratio). Server establishes initial connection with a HQ mp3 album and then its shares amoung people a la bt like program (like azueres). Share ratio goes up as you pay (i.e. $1 per GB - 1GB = +1 on ratio) or gives you a credit for sharing so much bandwidth each month (since it takes a drain off their servers and less of cost ot operate). Once your ratio hits 0 can't download any more music until you pay or share.
 
Originally posted by: rpbri2886
this kid graduated from my high school... he is quite the genius when it comes to this stuff

did he? ive known him online since before napster (he doenst come around no more though.. irc). did he have his z3 in high school? 🙂
 
Originally posted by: mrCide
Originally posted by: rpbri2886
this kid graduated from my high school... he is quite the genius when it comes to this stuff

did he? ive known him online since before napster (he doenst come around no more though.. irc). did he have his z3 in high school? 🙂

No... he came from a pretty middle class family.

He doesnt come around too much anymore, although his folks still live here i believe.

Harwich, Ma
 
I bet prices would be very low. . since there would be no content hosting.. it would be a reason to "risk" file integrety on p2p networks.. People already use these like crazy, but if they snocap, they dont have to worry about being busted, and probably pay a very low fee.
 
Originally posted by: Linux23
Originally posted by: TipsyMcStagger
sounds kinda dumb

why would anybody want to pay to download a possibly flawed version of a song from someone else
I think it would be pretty easy for some kind of central server to verify that only unaltered tracks are being shared. Besides that it sounds like a pretty good idea. Licensing fees would be pretty much the only overhead. If the savings were passed on to the customer in the form of much lower prices it could be a very successful business.
 
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