Shawn Fanning's New Venture

prostoalex writes "We've read about Justin Frankel, but what are the other heroes of the MP3 revolution up to? News.com.com.com tells the story of Shawn Fanning's new company. SnoCap (which changed its name from Open Copyright Database) is currently developing file-sharing mechanisms that would allow the music industry to earn money."

Comments

The next Revolution:

[bluewee]

OGG...

Re:The next Revolution:

[soft_guy]

What is the advantage of OGG? I hear about it on Slashdot all the time. I personally can't really tell the difference between listening to a CD, an MP3, or AAC. Maybe I don't have a good ear. Are there other advantages to OGG?

Re:The next Revolution:

[bluewee]

I get first post, and what do I get, troll "All [funny] passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." - Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)

Re:The next Revolution:

[bluewee]

REDUNDANT?!?! I got First post...

Hero? Give me a break

[Anonymous Coward]

He was just some kid who wrote a program primarily designed to trade illicit software.

Re:Hero? Give me a break

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that kid was a big part of the movie "The Italian Job", is well-known and liked in circles of famous hollywood types, has a movie coming out about him from hollywood, dates hot chicks, etc.

Re:Hero? Give me a break

[larry bagina]

You must have seen a different edit of "The Italian Job" than I did. In the version I saw, he was on screen for less than 10 seconds. That bomb was more of a car commercial than a movie. I don't know why Edward Norton agreed to be in it. Hell, I don't know why Marky Mark agreed to be in it.

Re:Hero? Give me a break

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget the movie, the dating hot chicks is enough to make him a hero of mine.

Re:Hero? Give me a break

[blixel]

Hero - within the context of the message.

If they had just said "he's a hero" and left it at that, I would agree. But they qualified the statement by saying "heroes of the MP3 revolution". Which I agree with. Within that small, contained area, they have certainly attained hero status. Without WinAmp or Napster, what would be the state of portable music today? (Assuming no on else had come along and achieved a similar status. But if that were the case, you would be arguing that [Some Guy] wasn't a hero instead of Justin Frankel.)

Re:Hero? Give me a break

[_Sexy_Pants_]

And then sold them name to big companies who proceeded to trick people into buying their products because of the Napster symbol slapped on them. Napster is dead, i'm afraid

Not well thought out if you need everyone to agree

[CGP314]

"It's a pretty well thought-out idea, but the success of it hinges on everybody in the ecosystem getting involved,"

Sounds like all those well thought-out ideas to stop spam, that simply need everyone to agree on something new.

--
In London? Need a Physics Tutor?

American Weblog in London

original name

[Anonymous Coward]

His lawyers wouldn't let him call it AssCap (get it, poking fun at ASCAP)?

How good is this for the consumer?

[Anonymous Coward]

If people are sharing-files in some form of triangle scheme for sharing profits-- who controls the quality of the music bought? I refuse to pay for music that cannot guarantee high-quality bit-rate. And, what happens when only part of a song is downloaded that was paid for and it becomes impossible to resume the download, because the person(s) whom you were grabbing a copy from disconnect?

Re:How good is this for the consumer?

[larry bagina]

I haven't tried Napster 2, walmart, buymusic, etc., but I get better download speeds from iTunes than I do from most p2p.

Having a bittorrent-type distribution system with the online music store always on might work, but there would probably be too many problems wrt DRM.

But what do I know? I've never run an unprofitable company with no business model before, Shawn has.

Re:How good is this for the consumer?

[tuxlove]

Funny thing is, he didn't actually run the company. It was run by a lot of other much more experienced and savvy people. Didn't help in the end, but they got a lot farther than if he was actually doing something. I visited their offices on business once and met Shawn. He had absolutely *nothing* to do with the meeting, which you think he would have if he actually had anything to do with running the company. He was a face for the company, nothing more (and not even as much as Boies, if you think about it). And the technology he created was lame. Napster's technology *sucked*; it was just plain bad.

The fact that he's involved with "SnoCap" is not inspiring in any way. He's no technical heavy hitter, and he's no businessperson. His only benefit is likely to be the attention gained from having a "big name".

Re:How good is this for the consumer?

[JPriest]

Napster was a new idea, people enjoyed hanging out in napster chat rooms and downloading new music, spyware free. Napster started a revolution and sparked major change in the way people listen to music. The clients out now are only small improvements over napster and it is how many years later?

dead page

[tsunamifirestorm]

you would think his website would at least have something to explain what it is going to be... a company called SnoCap from San Franciso, sounds like a snowboarding company

Re:dead page

[larry bagina]

A company from San Fran called "SnoCap"... Sounds more like oral sex to me.

Re:dead page

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

a company called SnoCap from San Franciso, sounds like a snowboarding company

Not everything is what its name sounds like.

Re:dead page

[pantycrickets]

you would think his website would at least have something to explain what it is going to be... a company called SnoCap from San Franciso, sounds like a snowboarding company

If you haven't already got the hint.. well, Shawn isn't exactly a "hero", or a "luminary", or anything like that. He's some jock kid with mediocre programming skills that dreamed of "getting rich from computers somehow", and then set out to do just that.

New website?

[ksheka]

News.com.com.com For when you want news about news.com.com ???

Yes, /. is redundant at times, but I thought the guys at CNet were a bit better...

Re:New website?

[koreth]

Nah, that'd be news.news.com.com.com.

Napster and Shawn Fanning

[Anonymous Coward]

Shawn Fanning is an idiot. This is not a troll. He releases a PTP system that is so inherently unthought out and stupidly illegal and try to make a go of it. He wrote a program in VB that was what it was because he couldn't implement anything more complex. Sure, some of the beauty of Napster was its simplicity. But this is also the reason we are in a jam with PTP systems like we are today. Without Napster we would not have the RIAA court cases. We would have Gnutella systems, Bit Torrent etc free from lawyers and everyone would be happy.

Napster was a lowest common denominator PTP system. It stole MP3's. Many people thought of simple systems like this that the masses could use but most knew better than to damage PTP credibility before this. Writing a Napster program in VB would take a few days at best. Not that his idea wasn't what counts, it is and simple is usually better. But in his case there was no way around it. Napster was made to steal music. At least with Hotline and similar technologies you could say it had other purposes and in some cases make other purposes for it.

Napster has caused so many problems with legit PTP systems. My problem with it was it was so flagrant. It was a dumb mans PTP system and it brought attention to other areas that otherwise didn't want it.

Now, I probably sound like I am hating on Napster because now it's harder for me to steal things. Well, it's not harder for to steal things so you can rule that out. But, I know systems are being monitored closely now and the general public knows what a PTP system is, well sort of. I download some music I don't own. I use free software so I don't need to pirate that. But now I can get a huge fine if I D/L a song from the wrong person. I blame Napster for this. Not for me D/Ling things, but for being so stupid, flagrant and blatantly illegal about it they fucked it up for everyone.

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning

[Anonymous Coward]

Shawn Fanning is an idiot. This is not a troll.

That's odd, sure sounds like a troll to me.

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning

[jonfelder]

One thing you cannot ignore is that napster brought P2P to the public eye. Sure we'd have P2P networks now, and they probably wouldn't have the RIAA trying to put them down. The reason why is because almost no one would be using them.

I don't like the RIAA tactics, but you have to admit that P2P is forcing them to change their business model. Would iTunes Music Store exist if P2P wasn't so wildly popular? Furthermore would we have access to so many portable music devices if it weren't for the popularity of napster and hence the popularity of digitized music (aka MP3 files)?

Not to mention that P2P gives me hope that one day artists will be able to directly reach their audience without the RIAA.

Fanning was really the first to let the gennie out of the bottle so to speak. You may think Fanning was an idiot for putting out a program designed only to steal music. I think he was pretty smart for putting out a program that finally allowed us to have something to fight the media giants with, and changed the way many people obtain their music. No longer do you have to record crappy quality tracks off the radio, nor do you have to buy 15 songs of crap for $18 to get one song you like.

P2P is a force to be reckoned with and it's because of napster that this is true.

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning

[MacDork]

Shawn Fanning is an idiot. This is not a troll. He releases a PTP system that is so inherently unthought out and stupidly illegal and try to make a go of it. He wrote a program in VB that was what it was because he couldn't implement anything more complex. Sure, some of the beauty of Napster was its simplicity. But this is also the reason we are in a jam with PTP systems like we are today. Without Napster we would not have the RIAA court cases. We would have Gnutella systems, Bit Torrent etc free from lawyers and everyone would be happy.

The reason we have distributed systems in the first place is due to the destruction of Napster. If Napster had never existed, I'm inclined to believe P2P would be nowhere near as widespread as it is today, or that it would even exist at all.

That said, I see no need for any software that allows the recording industry to make money. We simply don't need the recording industry anymore. All we really need are artists, and fans. Woe be to the recording industry when the likes of iRate and CDBaby meet. It's clear that we've got the distribution thing covered with the internet. A system like iRate handles the task of getting the artist exposure with fans who will appreciate them, and a store like CDBaby handles the obvious financial needs of the artists. That's really all the current recording industry does now.

So why do we need to include the bastards who sue 12 year olds again?

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning

[me.nick()]

P2P file sharing was bound to reach the public eye with or without the first mover being Napster. The internet had reached a massive audience and mp3 files had brought the size/quality of digital audio to an acceptable level (for listening & downloading). It was only a matter of time that a file-sharing program was created, be it Napster or something else.

Napster being technically liable for prosecution by the RIAA (due to its centralized indexing servers) and hence its eventual downfall has nothing to do with the current popularity of distributed apps. That whole fiasco might have increased public awareness of copyright law and music industry practices, but as for paving the way for P2P, it was going to happen regardless.

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning

[Anonymous Coward]

i think napster got this idea from majickal in #mircscipts.

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning

[Jordy]

He wrote a program in VB that was what it was because he couldn't implement anything more complex.

The Napster client was written using C++ using win32 calls. It was never written in VB. Ever. Granted it was more C with classes than C++, but it certainly wasn't VB.

You have to pretty naive to think that without Napster the RIAA would have simply ignored other systems that enable copyright infringement. Especially a system like bittorrent that with a central server component. Remember that Scour (which predated Napster) was sued, Aimster was sued, etc. It is just Napster received far more press than anyone else.

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning

[me.nick()]

And as for not needing the recording industry at all, I'll agree that the current incarnation of the recording industry is not required, but its uses might need some form of record companies to exist.

Record lables/companies don't only create & distribute, but they MARKET the artists and artists' products. Every time you see an artist on tv, or hear them on the radio (which is how most artists are introduced to the MASS audience), or see their posters in stores or songs in movies, the labels spent a lot of money and effort to get that exposure. How will you replace that? I know the internet can generate exposure to an already installed fan base, but how do you get more?

The internet is ideal for distribution, and with faster/lower priced desktops and music creation software, its easy to create the music. The last step is marketing, getting that music heard by a lot of people. I think that will be the only role future music companies might need to fill.

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning

[Anonymous Coward]

Good work friend. Welcome aboard: http://quadragon.net/pirate/index.html

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what PR firms do for people and corporations that aren't musicians. If the record industry crumbles, musicians will hire PR firms, who will work for them -- not the other way around.

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning

[phusnikn]

Shawn Fanning is a very smart guy he use to be apart of w00w00 if anyone rememeber w00w00 they were a handfull of a elite white hats who released alot of exploits back in the days and hacked alot of openbsd. Napster was a memeber of w00w00 way before Napster was a famous P2P name.

I still remember napster coming into #Winprog @ Efnet asking for help when he started napster p2p it was I believe his first win32 appliction he was pretty much a UNIX coder.

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning

[phusnikn]

Shawn @ w00w00 Dinner

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, never would have existed at all, eh?

Not like it ever existed before, on things like BBSes...newsgroups...IRC channels...hmm.

Thanks, Napster, for putting a Visual Basic interface on what we were already doing for years.

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning

[me.nick()]

Not exactly, PR firms charge a lot of money up front. How many unknown musicians/artists have enough money to hire such firms?? Record companies market artists based on potential reimbursment if the album gets popular. That is what is needed, not simple PR firms.

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning

[phoenix321]

repeat after me: "Word of mouth goes a long way on the Internet"

That's the way most of us had found out about Google, ICQ/etc., ebay and hell, even Slashdot and Linux.

Word of mouth is the most important means of advertising on the internet. Everything else is just spam and therefore mostly ignored. But a word from a guy at the forum will get you almost instant hits. Because you almost ever know for sure, that a person with a not-too-different background (you're reading the same forum...) liked it so much to talk about it.

So we would have used p2p-apps just as we do now if there would've been no Napster. We would adore Gnutella, FastTrack or something else, that was not invented since Napster was already there.

And because of word of mouth, we would all have known about it within at least a year. A press review or two and a small campus converted and the networt effect would have rosen it to the same heights Napster had reached.

Napster was no miracle, it had come after ICQ set a precedent and therefore was an impeding disaster waiting to happen. Don't tell me Shawn Fanning was the first on the planet who copied compressed music via digital networks ;)

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning

[Anonymous Coward]

I was so relieved that it wasn't written in VB. After all, it doesn't matter if the software is any good, only the language it was written in matters.

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning

[jpop32]

Record lables/companies don't only create & distribute, but they MARKET the artists and artists' products.

And which is exactly the reason they should die a horrible death. Artists shouldn't have to be marketed like products. That only fosters the music culture we have today - MTV and the like where the actual music takes a back seat to a host of other things - the look, the video, the hype, the bullshit.

To enjoy music, I don't particularly need to know how the performers look like, where they shop, who they hang out with and did or did not they break up with whoever.

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning

[proj_2501]

that's not marketing.

even small underground labels promote their artists. you try to book concerts. you try to make people aware of your music. this isn't easy and cheap, even if it's just going around the internet spreading word without marking yourself as spam

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning

[MacDork]

Just imagine if the word spread itself. That's what a system like iRate would do for artists. Upload your music, and the system spreads it around. Those who like a song rate it high. That song is then automatically referred to others who will probably like it based on their user profiles. Every band gets a fair shake and gets their music in front of those who are most likely to buy it. In contrast, the large record companies we have now would rather refer songs in order to maximize the strategic advantage of certain organizations and selected individuals ;-)

Their 'marketing' involves getting a song with broad appeal in front of everyone. The military would call this a dumb bomb :-) An iRate-like system would be a smart bomb, delivering the song exactly where it's needed.

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning

[proj_2501]

what you describe (the iRate part) already happens though. it's not enough for those who aren't in the know, dig?

Hide

[hlopez]

And is soon to discover the slashdot effect. All though that has to be the most worthless site ever.

Is it too late anyway

[Space cowboy]

Given there is a good freely-available format to rip into (OGG), the only way the publishers are going to get rich(er) is by value-add. That's not a terribly strong argument for a product.

The fundamental problem is I want to copy the music once I've paid for it. The music industry doesn't want me to do this - because if I can easily move it around, I can move it to my friends house (for visits, you understand :-) If they'd not been so damn greedy at the start, this state of affairs might have been (well, almost) completely avoided....

All I can say is, Good Luck - you're going to need it...

Simon

OCD?

[Jonah Hex]

which changed its name from Open Copyright Database

Might be a good thing to be called OCD, they could say their Obsessive and Compulsive about their Database software!

Jonah Hex

I love those...

[Anonymous Coward]

...sweet little Non Pareils, but not enough to pay the recording each time I eat one.

Re:Not well thought out if you need everyone to ag

[BoldAC]

"It's a pretty well thought-out idea, but the success of it hinges on everybody in the ecosystem getting involved," said one record label executive familiar with Snocap. "The key to its success is the peer-to-peer companies agreeing to participate. If they do participate, it could be phenomenal."

Might as well complete the quote...

The focus here is getting the peer-to-peer companies to participate. The user is going to take the path of least resistance (and money.) As long as there are free and easy to use peer-to-peer systems, projects like this do not stand a chance.

However, projects like this could easily take over... if and only if they include one vital key. The makers of the peer-to-peer software will make more money. Kazza, emule, and all the others will lay down their arms and gladly go to a pay-type system if they can make more money that way.

The problem with that is... there is not enough money to go around. For peer-to-peer to make more that means the music companies are going to have to take less. (They can't rape the artists any more than they already are.)

AC

This is going to be hurtful

[Anonymous Coward]

to the consumers, since they would benefit more by getting everything free than actually paying for it.

Re:This is going to be hurtful

[Anonymous Coward]

True, what's the point of living if I can't live for free?

Also, I like linux and getting kicked in the balls and face.

Please don't...

[JamesP]

is currently developing file-sharing mechanisms that would allow the music industry to earn money."

If anyone here thinks the RIAA should get more money please raise your hands...

Yes, yes... I thought so...

Re:Please don't...

[Alsee]

Exactly. The RIAA is simply trying to collect unearned income.

The purpose of the publishing industry is - get this - to publish and distribute. Guess what? Whith P2P every single user becomes a publisher and distributor. Once a file is in P2P we don't need the publishing companies to do jack. Why should publishers expect to collect money for sitting around doing nothing?

If they really want to suggest some sort of billing system for P2P then I say that money should go to the artist that actually created the work. Let the RIAA choke on THAT plan.

They are decrying that P2P means that artists wont get paid and that it will destroy the music industry and no more music will be created. BULL. The RIAA just wants to keep collecting their slice of the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in retail price on each album. The LAST thing they want is for artists to simply get paid. We no longer need to pay the RIAA umpteen million dollars for an album just to get tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars into the hands of the artist.

The music industry is quoted as being around a $12 billion dollar industry. The artists actually get only a few percent of that. P2P is quoted as about 60 billion "offending" downloads in 2003. Even if we assumed that P2P magically eliminated all performance income and magically reduced sales of physicals discs to zero and magically made it impossible to sell cheap non-crippled downloads on the internet, even if it magically eliminated all income from radio-play and all other commercial uses - we would only have to collect about ONE CENT per "offending" file TO PAY ARTISTS EXACTLY THE SAME AMOUNT THEY MAKE NOW.

And with the "war on P2P" over and the continuing growth of broadband the P2P userbase will expand rapidly. With double the userbase/traffic we'd only have to collect a half-cent per file to pay the artists the same amount. And with ten times the traffic we'd only have to collect a tenth of a cent for file to pay the artists the exact same amount.

All the claims about P2P destroying everything are nonsense. P2P does not in fact eliminate all of those other sources of income for artists. Even if my math were off by a factor of ten, the amount of money we actually need to funnel to artists is trivial and there are other ways to get those tiny sums to artists.

The war on P2P and the war to impose DRM are merely ploys to protect entrenched publishing corporations. They don't care about the artists. They just want to collect unearned rents.

-

Why

[Micro$will]

...is currently developing file-sharing mechanisms that would allow the music industry to earn money.

Why postpone the inevitable? Let the industry die.

Re:Why

[Zefram]

I hate to feed a troll and be off topic, but it annoys me that people see no reason for record companies. The music industry goes through piles and piles of utter crap to pick one crappy band that might make it to radio. They're an amazing shit filter, the public does NOT want to be inundated with unfiltered bands.

A recording company will help the artists develop their style. I don't mean make overs, they'll hook them up with a producer who will make the band sound like they know how to play so they can have a decent album. The record company will also split the bill for (a) hiring the producer who will make them sound decent, (b) hiring the engineers and renting the space for them to record (usually $50/hr for the room itself, and it takes months to record), (c) produce the actual CDs, market said CDs, make posters, buy ad space in magazines, try to get interviews with the band.

A recording company will also help get the band into venues, which are usually all run by one person in an area and are really hard to get into (the bigger venues, smallers clubs are run independently, sometimes).

Like I said, the whole music industry is a tremendous crap filter. Before a band gets on the radio it has to jump through so many flaming hoops that most don't make it, thankfully. I speak from experience, having been in bands and done much label work. Do I think things should stay this way? No f-ing way, there must be a better way to do it... and I'm out there trying things.

Re:Why

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of the hip musicians aren't paying $50/hr to record anymore, they're recording on laptops in home studios, or even on the road. Some of them don't need a producer to make them sound like they can play, because they can actually play. We don't need to produce CDs, now that technology has made it kinda silly to ship bits around on plastic disks.

Getting into good venues? Probably still a market for a good agent, but that doesn't mean you have to sign your copyrights over to a monopolistic cartel.

And filtering? Well, there's Magnatune, a label that takes about 10 percent of bands who apply, handles all sales, gives half the money to the artists, and lets the artists keep the copyright. I'm streaming some pretty cool music from them as I type this. Plenty of room for non-evil labels...for now anyway. Collaborative filtering is a pretty active research area. Plain old word of mouth works pretty well on the Internet, too.

Re:Why

[Micro$will]

I hate to feed a troll and be off topic, but it annoys me that people see no reason for record companies.

If my opinion sounds like a troll, it's because you fail to see the big picture. The record industry and broadcast radio are obsolete for 2 reasons:

1. With this new fangled "Intarweb" thingy, anyone can distribute their own content, whether it be music, text, or software, via subscription or free.
2. Most people these days can decide for themselves what they like from the thousands, if not millions of choices given to them on the Web, with or without the RIAA's blessing.

It's not offtopic either, I'm merely stating facts.

They're an amazing shit filter, the public does NOT want to be inundated with unfiltered bands.

Oh really? Well, you may have a point. With the quality of radio out today, I'd hate to think it could be worse. But y'know what? How about we decide what we can listen to, and let the vultur^H^H^H^H^H^Hproducers get a real job and earn their money instead of pretending to provide some useful service.

I would have no problem with the record industry if they were interested in distributing good music, but they're not. They're an industry, not just dedicated to making money, but obsessed with squeezing every last penny out of everything they can get they greasy hands on, and when something threatens that cash flow, they attack like a cornered rat desperate for survival.

Re:Why

[Anonymous Coward]

the public does NOT want to be inundated with unfiltered bands.

And people who like music do NOT want to be inundated with filtered crap.

Re:Why

[Zefram]

Well, (to cover my ass against moderation) this is a bit off topic. But, then again, due to what Shiney McShine (or whatever Mr Napster's name is) represents, it's not terribly off topic to talk about the industry in general. That said:

The record industry and broadcast radio are obsolete for 2 reasons:

1. With this new fangled "Intarweb" thingy, anyone can distribute their own content, whether it be music, text, or software, via subscription or free.
2. Most people these days can decide for themselves what they like from the thousands, if not millions of choices given to them on the Web, with or without the RIAA's blessing.

It's not offtopic either, I'm merely stating facts.

Actually, that's your opinion. I think it's naieve to say that people will just go to the Internet to find their music. Most people listen to the radio, no matter how much CC has made it suck. Most people need to hear of "good" music through word of mouth, or at least inundation and market saturation. It's also not the RIAA's blessing that's needing, it's the record company devoting the time and money to an artist that they think is good enough. The RIAA is there to deal with the whole of the recording industries legal troubles.

let the vultur^H^H^H^H^H^Hproducers get a real job and earn their money instead of pretending to provide some useful service.

Producers do earn their money. What would the Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana be without Butch Vig? Why would Butch Vig make them sound good if they couldn't pay him to produce their albums?

You're also not thinking about how these up and comers (who are now without an industry to support them, and competing with many, many more artists) distribute and publicize their albums, when they're not even able to pay for a producer? How are they going to make their CD's, much less ship it across the country AND the world, provide for demand, and get the money to go on tour where their CDs are selling?

I would have no problem with the record industry if they were interested in distributing good music, but they're not.

That I totally agree with. The whole way the arts are done needs to change. But I do not believe anarchy is the way to do it. I have no idea what the solution is, but I know artists on their own against the world is not the way. Artists tend to be poor, they need financial support to become better artists.

I think we need more of what existed in the 60s. We need to organize and make private internet radio stations with good music, and somehow try to invade each and every person's home town. We need more smaller labels that all communicate and coordinate together.

However, we're still faced with the problems of venue (playing a show, where artists really make the money) and radio (where corporations have taken hold). And I just don't know...

Heroes of the MP3 revolution?

[CausticWindow]

Dude. They made a gui for amp.

Please don't compare the two.

[jon_c]

Shawn Fanning is no Justin Frankel. He's not even in the same league. Justin Frankel is a hero, Shawn Fanning is just some dope that got lucky.

Re:Please don't compare the two.

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither of them are heros, and neither of them got lucky. They're both creative and very skilled.

Re:Please don't compare the two.

[Anonymous Coward]

Napster was pretty damned revolutionary when it first appeared. I wouldn't exactly call Shawn a "dope." Frankel did nothing but put a fancy UI on some existing code, after all.

Re:Please don't compare the two.

[/dev/trash]

If I had mod points and I use them all for this post.

Re:Please don't compare the two.

[CaseyB]

Sorry. From a software development standpoint, Napster was BAD. The architecture of the network may have had some inspiration, but the implementation was uniformly awful. The VB client was an abomination.

On the other hand, Frankel's work is consistently excellent. He writes creative applications that are small, elegant, and fast. The two people really are in different leagues.

Re:Please don't compare the two.

[Jordy]

For the 600th time, the client wasn't written in VB. It was written in C++ (really C with classes) using win32 calls.

Where in heck did this written in VB thing start?

Re:Please don't compare the two.

[Laconian]

Neither of them are heros, and neither of them got lucky. They're both creative and very skilled.

Did you read the article about how Frankel stuck it to the man at AOL? That's heroic in my book.

Re:Please don't compare the two.

[Troed]

WASTE contains some of the worst source code I've ever seen - and I've seen a lot. It looks like a C-programmer forced to use C++ wrote it, but without a clue as to how you write C++ at all (or any form of object orienting)

Yes, I've cleaned a lot of it up, and fixed a few of the most annoying problems.

Re:Please don't compare the two.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's how they teach "C++" where I went to school.

Classes, char * and stdio.

Re:Please don't compare the two.

[Anonymous Coward]

C with classes

How dumb. This was a name used internally by the gurus at Bell Labs before they knew better about Stroustrup. You don't get off the hook so easy, turds-for-brains.

What a bizarre plan

[Python]

This seems doomed to fail. It sounds like Sean is trying to sell DRM, based on audio fingerprints, to the record labels. Several technical problems exist with such schemes, such as the ability of the fingerprint to truly fingerprint the content, and of course, the need to trust the client, amongst other problems with DRM. In short, DRM built in the client won't work.

The big elephant in the room, however, is Sean himself. It sounds like SnoCap is trying to sell a "Secure" model to the entertainment industry, from someone the industry does not trust: Sean. This doesn't bode well for the industry. This is someone the industry claims contributed to the decline of CD sales, and yet then they will turn around and work with him to prevent it? Doesn't add up. Further, if well healed security and DRM companies have not suceeded with the industry, why should SnoCap where others have failed? SnoCap doesn't even appear to have any security people on its staff, so where does it get its expertise? Can anyone say "implementation flaw"? It just doesn't add up. DRM from a company and people that don't have any experience with DRM, security or working with the entertainment industry. Yeah, they're gonna get alot of cooperation from the RIAA.

Let us not forget the fact that Sean is not well liked in the entertainement industry, nor are the former investors in Napster. These people have little hope of getting the RIAA onboard. Even if they do manage to gain some ground with the industry, its a steep climb for SnoCap to anything close to sucess.

BTW, why would you want to use a P2P client that has DRM, when you can use something like eMule, Kazaa, GNUNet or any other P2P client that doesn't? Yeah, this will do about as well as Napster would have if they had implemented DRM. Dead in the water.

Re:What a bizarre plan

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

It sounds like Sean is trying to sell DRM, based on audio fingerprints, to the record labels.

If I was him, given the crap he's been given by record companies in the past, I'd try to scam them too : it looks like they'd buy buy any goofy computer solution to save their doomed business model these days.

Re:What a bizarre plan

[jfengel]

why would you want to use a P2P client that has DRM, when you can use something like eMule, Kazaa, GNUNet or any other P2P client that doesn't?

Well, for starters I'd pick a P2P client that doesn't include spyware, which lets out Kazaa, at least the original. Not that DRM doesn't contain its own nasty potential for privacy violations, but I'd pick it over Gator.

Then I'd look for the biggest network, because the more people use it, the more stuff you can actually get your hands on. If this guy can make a lot of stuff available, many people might go for it, because dealing with DRM may well be less bad than 200-hour failed downloads from an illegal system. That's why people pay a buck to Apple: "free" but unavailable isn't free.

Still, in the end I dunno what this guy thinks he's going to get. P2P works only because it's free. When you pay for music, you get the privilege of a dedicated fast server with a support staff. Pay music on P2P would be trying to get other people to do the storage and network space. I'm not participating in that.

Re:What a bizarre plan

[Python]

Yep. People pay for apple because they serve the content. With a P2P model, you have no idea what service you are going to get from a peer. The problem with the P2P pay-as-you-go model is that you have no QOS guaranteed in the model. Maybe you get the download now, maybe it takes a few days, maybe its a good recording, etc, you just don't know. Come on, for pennies you can get the music NOW!. With SnoCap you get... what? DRM crippled content? A slow P2P download? An untrustworthy company filled with people that don't care about the users or the content owners? No thanks. They don't sound like they plan to do anyone any favors

For most people, the old school P2P model works because they already paid for the bandwidth (ISP fees), they own the computer and, they don't mind waiting for the content. It didn't "cost" them anything, so let it ride. Sean is apparently not as smart as everyone thinks. This makes no sense. Napster worked because it was "free" and it was the only option at the time. Now there are many many other options, and they are vastly superior to napster, they offer other content as well (video, boosk, software, etc.), and lets be honest, Napster was a trivially simple setup: client -> server. This is a real P2P system like gnutella, kazaa, etc.. Sean invented the mainframe, someone else invented the PC of the P2P world. His ideas are ancient history and he hasn't had a new idea since then. Frankly, all he did was create a central directory for DCC IRC transfers. Neat, useful, revolutionary, but its ancient history now. There are much better options and he seems stuck in the past.

Regardless, SnoCap appears to lack the key ingredient that is needed: value. People have to see that there is a point to using it, more content, faster D/ls, quality, time not wasted, money, etc. Given the unlikeliness that Sean can convince an industry made up of technophobes with petty beefs towards him, long memories, and a history of not caring about either the artist or the consumer, SnoCaps chances of working out a good deal for all parties are slim. These are not people that play well with others, let alone their enemies: Napster founders and executives. The whole P2P revolution the recording industry believes cost them a ton of money, and is continuing to hurt them. Why on Earth would the recording industry trust someone that they believe cost them billions?

This SnoCap thing is ridiculous. You couldn't ask for a bigger joke. The users won't trust Sean because he's "sold out", he wants to build DRM on top of P2P, and the entertainment industry can't stand him or the people involved with him. Its absurd. If I didn't know any better, I would wonder if this was some big fake story for what the company is really doing. But seeing who invesnted in it, I'm not suprised. These are the same people that thought poring money into Napster, without anything close to a business model was going to net them billions. Yeah, so how is that working out for them now? Thought so.

Move along folks. This is ysterdays news. This is the the sad story of a dot-bomb crew trying to relive their glory days in the most absurd and attention grabing way possible. The industry might throw them a bone, but they have nothing to add to the current mix. iTunes and others are already doing this, and without all the mess. Its cheap, its easy, and if you don't want to even pay a few cents for your tunes, you can still get them from Kazaa, eMule and so on. Nothing to see here at all, except a sad sad attempt to try and re-invent Napster.

Re:What a bizarre plan

[Python]

He would be better served creating a truly anonymous P2P client and charging for it. Instead, he looks to be sucking up to the people that put him out of business. WTF?

Re:What a bizarre plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you making all of these assumptions about what Snocap does based on a PRESS article. One that is based off of second and third hand information and lacks any real substance? You are the one being ignorant if you think any of the real detail of what they are doing has been publicized to date. Once they come out publicly and discuss what they are doing - then feel free to criticize their strategy.

Re:What a bizarre plan

[Python]

Because unlike the author of the article, some of us in the valley actually already knew about his newcompany. This isn't news here.

Re:What a bizarre plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowing about it and knowing what it is about are two very different things. The majority of your statement makes it clear that you do not know what they are doing or why - I do know the details of what they are doing, hence my first statement.

Re:What a bizarre plan

[Python]

So, please, enlighten us all about what the are really up to. Of course, you'll probably just claim your signed an NDA... blah blah blah. Whatever.

Re:What a bizarre plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I'm working on it :) I had no interest in getting in a further debate - my only interest is in asking that people hold off on judgement before they actually hear what the project is rather than making assumptions as a result of a press leak with less than 1% of the actual story. Its also nice to work in peace on something you believe in so strongly without public scrutiny :)

Re:What a bizarre plan

[Python]

Well, best of luck to you if what you say is true. But the chances of SnoCap securing rights to content from the entertainment industry is slim. Also, some of what SnoCap wants to do (I also know what they are really up to) is patented by other companies, and they still need to secure the rights to those methods. All in all, they have a very long ways to go, and the executive team has a bad track record in this market.

Re:What a bizarre plan

[Anonymous Coward]

None of the senior executive team from Napster is involved in the SNOCAP project. It is entirely comprised of the core founders who did not drive the business strategy of the company. So you could say this represents what might have been if the original guys were able to drive the business side rather than the financiers.

OGG vs SnoCap

[BoldAC]

Do not consider this a troll... (as I am sure your alarms are going off already) but I do not understand why this kid is getting rich as hell, and the makers of OGG are not.

This kid just has an idea for a peer-to-peer system and he already has a large angel investor... the same angel investor that poured large amounts of money into napster. And the system doesn't even exist yet.

On the otherhand, take OGG -- a kickass music format that we all love and cherish. A few advertising wizards could turn it into the standard music format on the internet. Where are the VCs and angel investors for OGG?

OGG is a proven product that rocks. SnoCap is little more than white text on a blue background.

SnoCap will make money because non-tech people remember that napster exploded with potential. SnoCap will make money because investors see that I-Tunes is working.

OGG will struggle because the non-tech investing community doesn't understand the power of a new and better music format.

The world is twisted.

AC

Re:OGG vs SnoCap

[Anonymous Coward]

OGG will struggle because the non-tech investing community doesn't understand the power of a new and better music format.

No, Ogg will struggle because it has no commercial benefit over existing alternatives. It has no "power".

It's that simple. From the consumer perspective MP3, WMA, and AAC do all that Ogg does. There's no benefit to anyone sinking money into Ogg since the consumers simply don't care.

Re:OGG vs SnoCap

[Anonymous Coward]

This kid just has an idea for a peer-to-peer system and he already has a large angel investor... the same angel investor that poured large amounts of money into napster. And the system doesn't even exist yet.

To put it in perspective:

I know the readers of /., for the most part, have a problem with people actually making $ off of software. IMHO Napster is a peice of computing history. It brought P2P into the mainstream, and forced media companies to take notice. iTunes and the like owe their existance to Napster.

Frankly, unlike many of the .com's out there that produced a great number of optionaires, Sean produced something REAL that MILLIONS of people found USEFUL.

Sean's riches have allowed him to move out of his parents' basement and get a haircut; You should worship him.

As for Ogg, audio CODECs are a dime a dozen. Listening to you geeks argue that Ogg is better than, say WMA, is like listening to audiophiles argue about which DAC sounds better in their hi-fi. Who cares?

Re:OGG vs SnoCap

[radixvir]

OGG will never succeed commericially becuase it has no DRM (at least i think dont think it does). these new commercial projects are funded because they have DRM. why support a project thats good for the people when businesses can support a project thats good for themselves.

Re:OGG vs SnoCap

[Afty0r]

The world is twisted.

So where would the angel investor get his money back from if he invested in OGG?

Re:OGG vs SnoCap

[Anonymous Coward]

people actually making $ off of software.
Are we still talking about Napster here? The same Napster that had absolutely no revenue of any kind? Is this Shawn Fanning, who took VCs' money through pure dishonesty? Who never had any inclination to make money and hence make their investments worthwhile?

Shawn Fanning is a businessman in the worst meaning of the word.

Re:OGG vs SnoCap

[JudgeFurious]

All these other people replying to you are hitting the nail on the head. Where is the money in OGG? Granted SnoCap doesn't even exist yet but they're betting that whatever it ends up being will be somethng that can make some money and that's why it's got an investor.

That's a very risky bet but at least it's a chance. OGG is right there in front of them and ready to go but they don't see any money in it. That should tell you something.

Mp3 made somebody money because it came first. From that point forward the only way your're going to make any money is with a proprietary format with at least some semblance of DRM built into it and blessed by someone important before it's even out in the world (like ACC or WMA).

Otherwise you just have a reinvented (hey maybe even improved, doesn't matter) Mp3 and it's never going to pry away the crown from Mp3.

Face it, Mp3 gets in because it's the standard. If Apple, Microsoft, the RIAA, etc had they way it would vanish too in a second. It won't just like OGG won't be anything more than a footnote format.

Re:OGG vs SnoCap

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderation abuse. Big time.

The above post was not a troll. A troll is a post that says something silly or false just to provoke reponses. The above post was nothing of the kind.

Moderating a post "troll" is not the same as saying "I disagree." Please try to remember that.

Also: please try to remember that Napster was a tool for the facilitation of criminal activity. Period.

You people make so much noise about doing what's right, but somehow you've found yourselves on the wrong side of the argument.

Justin quit.

[Anonymous Coward]

2004-01-23 13:00:57 Justin Frankel Actually Quits Nullsoft (articles,music) (rejected)

Hmmm.... /finger justin@landoleet.org

I have a log of the program's debug output!

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Snocap has been working on ways to identify songs, as they are traded through a file-swapping network, including using a technique called "audio fingerprinting," which monitors the sonic characteristics of music files.

shawn $ fingerprint_id_test test_files.txt

LOADING INPUT TEST FILE: beethoven.mp3
Identifying ...
100% Match: Beethoven, Ludwig Van, classical

LOADING INPUT TEST FILE: coltrane.mp3
Identifying ...
100% Match: Coltrane, John, Jazz

LOADING INPUT TEST FILE: chembros.mp3
Identifying ...
100% Match: Chemical Brothers, electronic
77% Match: Daft Punk, electronic
75% Match: Noise, industrial-moise-recording

LOADING INPUT TEST FILE: britspears.mp3
Identifying ...
100% Match: Spice girls, teenage pop
100% Match: N'Sync, teenage pop
100% Match: Backstreet Boys, teenage pop
100% Match: Hilary Duff, teenage pop
100% Match: Maris Willson, teenage pop
100% Match: Holly Valance, teenage pop
100% Match: Mandy Moore, teenage pop
100% Match: Vitamin C, teenage pop
100% Match: Christina Aguilera, teenage pop
100% Match: Five, teenage pop
100% Match: Jennifer Lopez, teenage pop
100% Match: Aaliyah, teenage pop
100% Match: Rachel Stevens, teenage pop
100% Match: Pink, teenage pop

*** Endless recursion error. Core dumped ***

SnoCap is not viable?

[Anonymous Coward]

"We had a very similar idea run past us," said LimeWire Chief Technology Officer Greg Bildson. "We basically ended up not following up on it. It is interesting, but we're not interested in building filtering and any centralization into our client."

Love Your Enemy

[BoldAC]

"Shawn is a smart, articulate guy. That goes a long way," said one source familiar with Fanning's discussions with record labels. "He walks in a world that they desperately want access to."

If I were this group of record companies... I would kill myself and do the world a favor.

Wait...

If I were this group of record companies, I would hire a kid like this in a heartbeat. He is likely to understand the peer-to-peer community much more than the record executives. He's help people do it the free and easy way... and maybe he can transition everybody into a more "legit" method of music transfer.

I don't think the record execs are scared of this guy... I think they are having wet dreams about his re-securing their monolopy on music.

What is this kid likely to do? We'll just have to wait and see. He's probably smart enough that he could sweet talk his way into a lot of vaporware dollars...

AC

Re:Love Your Enemy

[Anonymous Coward]

I would hire a kid like this in a heartbeat....
What is this kid likely to do?...

You know what's funny, Mister 700K+ Slashdot ID who speaks arrogantly and with bold tags? It's that it's almost certain you're an oily tick and "this kid" is several years older than you ...

Re:Love Your Enemy

[Python]

Don't forget, his company, unlike others in the digital music space, failed totally, so how smart is he? He didn't pull anything off except the total loss of money for all parties involved.

Re:Love Your Enemy

[BoldAC]

I agree.

However, in business people fail... often multiple times before they have a financially successful project or company.

In some ways he has already succeeded in this project--he has a large angel investor. As my accountant and lawyer both recently told me, most investors avoid internet-anything as they are still hurting from the dotcom flop.

Getting money from investors for internet/tech related projects is tough right now. He has gotten money...

He is already ahead of the game.

Ac

Re:Love Your Enemy

[Python]

Actually, funding is on the rise again. Its not that hard to get funding for a new project. Nevertheless, in the present case, Sean didn't pitch this to VCs, he got one of the people that invested in Napster to invest in SnoCap. Its not suprising that he would go back to the people that invested in Napster, he knows them, they know him. Its also not suprising that the same people that thought Napster was going to work would think this would too. They were not disinterested parties in Napster. We're talking about some of the same people that ran Napster into the ground, but probably don't realize it. Sometimes people stick to their guns even after a spectacular failure like Napster.

In the present case, its possible this investment occured becayse no one learned from their mistakes, investors are sticking by their friends or they sincerely think this is a great idea. In any of these cases, this doesn't mean its going to suceed. Napster was well funded, and it failed. Funding is not an event by itself. Its a non-event, its only the very start of an idea and it has little bearing on success. So don't read too much into the fact that his idea got funded. You can literally have the greatest idea ever, but if you can't pitch it and you don't know the right people you won't get a cent. You can have a mediocre idea and if you know the right people, you can get a lot of money. Hell, you can get a ton of money and still crash and burn. It helps to fuel the engine of growth, but funding along can not make a company succeed. As they say, you cant polish a turd.

Heroes?

[leftie_hater]

LOL, Fanning did nothing more than create a program that allowed for the illegal pirating of music.

Justin Resigned AOL/Nullsoft

[lotsofno]

Justin recently announced that he has resigned from AOL and Nullsoft:

Trying landoleet.org
Attempting to finger justin@landoleet.org -
Login: justin - - - - - - - - - - Name: Justin
Directory: /home/deadbeef - - - - Shell: /usr/local/bin/tcsh
Never logged in.
New mail received Thu Oct 9 15:07 2003 (PDT)
- - Unread since Mon Mar 10 12:28 2003 (PST)
Mail forwarded to: justin@blorp.com
Plan:
Jan 22, 2004

Well, it took a bit longer than I (or likely anybody else expected), but after four and a half years, I've resigned from my position at AOL. Yay/sigh/etc.

This will likely be the last time I update this .plan, but I might find myself updating the .plan of justin@blorp.com.

peace out.

eof
-
End of finger session

Fortunately, this won't really result in a loss of quality with future Winamp versions. their two main coders, "Francis and Christophe," Will be taking over most of the development. From what I've heard, they did most of the work with Winamp 5. And as most of those who've taken the time to really check out Winamp 5... It really whips the llama's ass.

Re:Justin Resigned AOL/Nullsoft

[TALlama]

It really whips the llama's ass.

OW!

Re:Not well thought out if you need everyone to ag

[Anonymous Coward]

Please could you put your .sig in your .sig space?

"allow the music industry to earn money"

[Anonymous Coward]

allow the music industry to earn money

Next, we'll be teaching fish to swim, birds to fly, and rabbits to reproduce....

The contest

[anarchima]

Ladies and gentlement, let the pissing contest begin!

heheheh

[Anonymous Coward]

lol

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Re:i have a question.

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone here truly gove a shit about what this ass-licking lower is doing?

I gotta gove it to you, you sure gove the impressing of being the lower around here, so gove us a break and gove up posting on /., willya?

Re:Not well thought out if you need everyone to ag

[gl4ss]

there's just one problem with that as well, the systems where there IS NO COMPANY, so 'more profit' is not a motivator.

-

What I don't get is

[ThusandSuch]

why nobody has started a strictly online label with better pay. New bands sign on, make more money, and the industry thrives. The old bands die out. I don't pretend to actually know anything about this.

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning - DUPE

[c_oflynn]

dupe - this thing seemed familiar.

See Comment 7177426

Shawn

[Anonymous Coward]

One good thing about Shawn that I like over Justin.

Shawn Fanning shops at the Good Guys.

Re:Shawn

[Anonymous Coward]

hhehe I saw Shawns add in Wired last month also.'

"Shawn Fanning shops at the Good Guys"

Why invest in OGG?

[sirshannon]

VC firms invest so that they can make money. I don't know that much about OGG other than it is the worst name ever but I don't know of any way you would make money from it. Is there some way that this format would make a few billion and the VC firms would get the return on investment they require?

Why Two .COM's

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone knows why news.com.com and rss.com.com have 2 dot coms? Google had no answer for me.

Re:Why Two .COM's

[Anonymous Coward]

cause Cnet wants to come higher on NielsenNetratings

So they own the com.com, and now everything is redirected to it

news.com.com
download.com.com

and soon

mp3.com.com

Common MIsconceptions.....

[szyzyg]

You know most people here seem to be of the opinion that Napster was an obvious concept and anybody here couldhave come up with it. The Next step in everyone's misguided logid is that Shawn is therefore no smarter than the average slashdot reader..... then jealousy kicks in and people start calling him names for getting all the attention.

Well, at the start of 2002 I ended up out of a job and managed to get a position in Napster, long past the days when they were running the full service. There was the Beta test for the pay service running as well as a few potentially groundbreaking court cases. Turns out I was the last engineer Napster hired.

Anyway, I'd studied the napster setup in great detail and I pretty much had the same opinions - I figured that Shawn was an average geek who had got lucky. I didn't expect he'd much from him, hey, I'd spent 10 years in academia, I'd spent years 'saving the world from killer asteroids' (http://szyzyg.arm.ac.uk/~spm), and....

I'd wrote and released the first mp3 radio software and then watched Justin Frankel and winamp get all the credit for 'inventing' it a year and a half later. I went to napster expecting that Shawn wasn't anything special.

Boy was I wrong, he is a genuinely smart guy, yes he was also lucky - just like I'm a smart guy who wasn't so lucky. I think a lot of technical people underestimate him and sometimes this is working to his advantage.

So, lay off the assumption that luck == stupid - smart people get lucky all the time too.

Re:Common MIsconceptions.....

[Python]

Oh please. Lets be realistic. He had a revolutionary idea in a market vacuum. He wrote some cool, useful, revolutionary software - but he is not a business genius. You can have the greatest idea on Earth, but if you can't make it into a business, then you won't make a cent of it. Sean wanted to make money, and he made nothing, nor did his investors or anyone except the lawyers.

So lets review, Sean was smart enough to let his Uncle own over 70% of the company before they had even hired one employee, smart enough to never construct a model that would generate one cent of revenue, and smart enough to let his VCs and lawyers run Napster into the ground and he's working with them again? Wow, what a plan, anyone wondering whats going to happen again?

Just to be clear, how much did you, or anyone else net from Napster? Aside from all the lawyers of course? Nothing? This is sad. Sean is a clever opportunistic programmer, but he's not a sharp businessman. He's in league with the same people that ran Napster into the ground. He's a dupe. He's being taken advantage of, at best, and he's shortsighted at worst. I for one hope he cuts the bounds, turns his back on these idiots that ruined Napster and truly does his own thing.

Don't be so quick to hand him all the credit for the implosion of Napster though. Afterall, he was surrounded by geniuses. Brilliant people that blew the chance of a lifetime and netted nothing, and convinced him it was a great idea. No doubt how they have strung him along with this one.

A sad story. Pity the man.

Re:Common MIsconceptions.....

[tuxedo-steve]

Intelligence does not directly equate to business sense.

I'm sure there exists in the world a successful businessman who has never had an original idea in his life. There exists a talented programmer who wouldn't have the slightest idea of how to make the money from his art.

Shawn Fanning may be neither of these two. But don't judge his intelligence purely on the basis of his ability to make money with it.

Re:Common MIsconceptions.....

[Python]

Didn't say otherwise. Read the post again.

Re:Napster and Shawn Fanning - DUPE

[pantycrickets]

Even an AC can repost something and get +4? That's pretty scary.

P2P what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe when you young kids grow up and earn money you can then buy compact disks and convert them to Ogg. That's what I did once I graduated college and found a job.

It makes me feel...

[Andy Smith]

... physically sick to see Shawn Fanning referred to as a hero.

There are many cold, calculating and ruthless people in the music business. Shawn Fanning is one of them. Please don't ever think for one single second that he was "one of us".

Re:It makes me feel...

[znaps]

Cold, calculating and ruthless? Wise up..he's just another smart kid who had a good idea and tried to get rich off it.

Yeah I'm sure he would have done some things differently given the chance to go back, but hindsight is a wonderful thing..

No but it is a sore point for the "parent"

[Anonymous Coward]

He hates Fanning 'cause Napster was simple and brought PTP to the ignorant masses.Sounds like quite an accomplishment not to mention the long green.
How did you and the poster swap your Gay p0rn before Napster?

He's not the real Napster

[Stubtify]

He's not Napster! I'm the real napster. Shawn was my roommate in college, I rote napster and named it that because I was always napping. When I fell asleep one day he stole the program from me and now he gets all the glory.

Re:He's not the real Napster

[ImprovOmega]

I can't believe you would publicly admit to watching The Italian Job...Oh crap, I just publicly admitted to watching The Italian Job.

Interesting! Mod parent JEALOUS LITTLE BITCH

[Anonymous Coward]

I just don't get the moderation around here some asshole runs down someone elses accomplishment and he is "Interesting"?Try jealous,whiny,elitist or hey TROLL!

What a shortsighted idea

[Anonymous Coward]

So he's using audio fingerprints and a central database to identify the owners of shared files. That's cool. But then he's going to try to make client software refuse the download unless you pay? Ain't gonna work unless Hollywood succeeds in controlling your hardware. No reason for consumers to be interested.

With the exact same technology, he could implement voluntary tipping and send most of the money direct to the artist. Artists could post their work to the database for free, Fanning takes a small cut of each payment, and people could find good songs they've never heard of the same way they did on Napster...by searching the directories of people who post music they like.

And don't tell me voluntary payments don't work...Magnatune lets you decide for yourself how much to pay for an album, as long as it's at least five bucks, and their average payment is over $9. People are willing to pay, because they know the artist is getting half.

Re:What a shortsighted idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe it or not, your comments about what it should do are actually much closer to what it does than the press article itself. I am farmiliar with the project and you have to realize, the press article written barely scratched the surface of the project and its implications. This is another example of people overanalyzing a press leak based on a small amount of second and third hand information. Lets wait for them to explain their concept themselves before we make any more assumptions or attempt any further analysis...

At least it wasn't...

[xorbe]

ScoNap!

Re:At least it wasn't...

[Laconian]

+1, Funny

Re:Hero? Give me a break (OT)

[UncleWalrus]

I read that Edward Norton was essentially contractually forced to be in it. As for Marky Mark... who knows.

Lets avoid making ignorant assumptions

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone here who pays attention to the press knows how wrong it often is... and considering the intelligence level of the average Slashdot reader, you would expect that most would hold off on expressing their views on something they do not yet understand. Lets wait for SNOCAP to explain what it is doing before judging the project based on a vague press article. I am farmiliar with what they are doing and anyone who assumes its just another run of the mill concept is going to be very surprised. Also, I don't believe Shawn ever claimed to be a great programmer or geek-hero.. in fact, he said Napster was his *FIRST* Windows program and that he made use of what he had to make the system work. Lets cut him some slack here and see what he does before ripping him up - I know for a fact that he reads Slashdot and I for one wish him the best of luck. One other thing, he may not have been a seasoned programmer when he wrote Napster, but he is a brilliant mind and anyone who has met him knows that...

Re:Lets avoid making ignorant assumptions

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi Shawn! How's it going?

Re:Lets avoid making ignorant assumptions

[Anonymous Coward]

Very funny - I have met him however so I will take this as a compliment. I also don't believe he likes any of this attention (positive or negative) which is why I feel compelled to come to his defense.

OGG? Never heard of it.

[Anonymous Coward]

On the otherhand, take OGG -- a kickass music format that we all love and cherish.

What "we all" are you talking about? Virtually no one, even among the /. crowd, uses OGG. Virtually no one even freakin' cares that it exists. In the larger world beyond the hallowed halls of /., virtually no one has even heard of OGG.

Shaun Fanning's role in development

[Laconian]

What does Shaun bring to the table besides celebrity clout? I was unimpressed with the quality of Napster's code before it got big, and obviously he has not demonstrated any strength in growing a business or developing a revenue model. He was just in the right place at the right time, keen to exploit vagueries in ancient copyright statues.

This one will get tons of press because of Shaun's presence, but I wouldn't say that his role gives the company any more of a chance at succeeding.

Flamebait? My ass.

[Laconian]

Mr. Anonymous Coward is right. Frankel is a computer programmer whom we all can only hope to aspire to be. If we call Shaun Fanning a hero because he stole things en masse, we should throw ticker tape parades for the Mafia, because they're REALLY good at stealing!

Re:Flamebait? My ass.

[Anonymous Coward]

I AM THE REAL NAPSTER.

no but really, Frankel a programmer whom we all can aspire to be? I hope your kidding, we don't all want to spend our life sitting in front of a computer writing lines of code.

Re:Not well thought out if you need everyone to ag

[Night Goat]

Hey, you know, if I wanted to see your signature, I would have enabled signature viewing in my preferences. Screw you, you're now on my foes list. I don't need to see more advertising on Slashdot.

Re:Not well thought out if you need everyone to ag

[JPriest]

It sounds like you need to work out some stress

Everyone has a publicist.

[LojaK]

/. should have a section for press releases and updates from publicists, then I could configure ./ to not show me any of these asinine topics.

Please give it some consideration.

-- L.

Re:Everyone has a publicist.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed.

Also, the number of articles that are short on fact yet receive this type of exposure only further propogate disinformation which in turn yield a plethora of ignorant commentary.

Until there is a formal launch or a more informed release, any analysis is a waste of time.

They are going into the router business?

[val1s]

Or Sell bandwidth that those file sharing apps eat so much of, there is money in that, just alot of players in it already. val1s

You stole my post

[nate nice]

Here is the link to this original post that this perosn posted anaonymously.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=81764&cid=0& pi d=0&startat=&threshold=5&mode=thread&commentsort=0 &op=Change

Scroll down a bit and you will find it. I'm flattered you liked my post enough to use it but you could have credited me with it. Thanx!

Short on Details

[Anonymous Coward]

I made this comment in another posting, but I will say it again here (this is something that has irked me for a while about Slashdot):

The number of Slashdot postings that reference articles short on fact serves only to further propogate disinformation which in turn yields a plethora of ignorant commentary.

Until there is a formal launch or a more informed release, any analysis is a waste of time.

Winamp 5 is a hog

[Anonymous Coward]

Winamp 2 could run fine on a high end 486. The min cpu requirement for Winamp 5 is 400mhz and it also eats lot more ram than Winamp 2! My computer is only 400 mhz, but even if I had a 2ghz pc, I would not waste system resources on Winamp 5. When you have lots of different program running why waste extra resources for Winamp 5, does it add anything new I use? NO!

Winamp 5 really bogs the llama down.

Re:Winamp 5 is a hog

[pyrros]

[Nice troll, being a winamp fanboi, i can't help but reply]

Have you actually tried winamp 5 or are you talking out of your ass?

Seriously, winamp 5 is winamp 2 with winamp3 skin support (which is where most of the hogging comes from, and you can even disable it by uninstalling the "modern skins support" plugin) plus ripping and burning support (depending on who you ask -- it was added in an unofficial 2.x version)

On my athlon 2100+ system, winamp5 takes up 2.5 megs of ram while playing with a classic skin and less than 1% cpu (task manager says 0%) and while it jumps up to 15 megs with the default modern skin, cpu use stays the same.

On the new functionality thing, modern skins are a huge plus, as they have better international/ unicode support, they can alpha blend (try always on top + transparency with auto opaque on focus/hover). Also, classic skins feel very very small on 1280x1024 and up. The music library is better too, and the global hotkeys are kind of useful. I personally don't care about ripping and burning but i guess someone could like them.

Re:Winamp 5 is a hog

[Anonymous Coward]

Try using Winamp 5 on a system thats cpu is the min requirments and you will see what I am talking about. Using alot of the gui options lags the whole system.

All the new features of Winamp 5 can satisfied with Winamp 2 plugins. They have plugins for winamp 2 that mirror the library functions of Winamp 5.

I am not the troll, you are the troll. I cannot tell you how much system resources Winamp 5 uses on my pc, because I have uninstalled it and I am not gonna install it just to prove a point on slashdot. When a program lags my whole system under the burden of its demands on my cpu and ram, without adding anything of value other than as you say yourself "modern skins", and has no feature that I use that cannot be met in Winamp 2 or its plugins, then it is garbage. I am not gonna upgrade my 400 mhz pc just to use a bloated mp3 player like Winamp 5.

/\ Malako /\

[Anonymous Coward]

/\ Malako /\