Slashdot Mirror
Shawn Fanning Is Back Into Digital Music
prostoalex writes "News.com has a lengthy 3-page article on Shawn Fanning's new venture, Snocap. After years of development the company is coming out of the stealth mode and has apparently already secured a distribution deal with Universal Music, promising to turn file-sharers into loyal paying customers overnight. Both News.com and Associated Press are skimpy on the details, but apparently Snocap will market the technology that will (a) sniff out the files shared illegally and (b) fill the peer-to-peer networks with licensed content and serve as a clearing house for the ventures who want to license digital music, but don't want to deal with gazillion of music labels." (We mentioned Snocap last in January.)
Why would I bother with this when I already have an alternative that is free of charge, more secure, and has more content?
Material that is available for legal distribution is just too boring to attract subscribers, at least currently. (Musically that is, so Project Goethenberg aside)
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
Politics, Life, and More on my Aspiring for the Future
It seeks out and find illegal music, and then it fills the P2P networks with legal music.
excuse me, but isn't sharing legal music still illegal? If not, then I got like 350 cd's everyone can have a copy of... come and get it!
If I wrote something witty, you would say I stole it from somewhere.
No, that would be far too logical. Better to charge the consumer for a new copy in whatever medium is in vogue, and then prosecute the people who try to (justifiably) download all the old songs they have on cassette or acetate 78 RPM record.
I'm just saying we should clear the slate. If it's all about having a license, then let it be about that. But I think I'm owed a few credits for every album I've purchased more than once.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
Why would I bother with this when I already have an alternative that is free of charge, more secure, and has more content?
These people forget that the DRM'ed content is incompatible with my living room DVD player, my car CD player and my portable MP3 player.
I gathered from the article that a dealer could forward a copy and the reciepient could then buy it. It sounds like buying the DRM key to unlock it to me. My hardware can't use that content. Get a clue guys.. Use a universaly accepted standard.
This is as useful to me as if you came in to my store and only had Lyra and not dollars. I'd send you away to get it exchanged into something accepted here. DRM music has the same problem. I won't take it. I can't use it. Calling it music doesn't make it playable any more than calling Lyra in the US money makes it good for buying things here.
Just because I can use it somewhere doesn't make it universal in my location.
The truth shall set you free!
Music is like porn. There is tons of free porn out there, but the porn business is still booming. When a person "consumes" pornographic media, their desire for more generally increases. I believe the same goes for music. My exposure to easy music downloads has only served to increase my general interest in music. I listen to more genres and artists now than I ever thought imaginable a few years ago. And I have paid a decent amount for new music as a result, via the current channels.
And I know I speak for many people when I say: "Whatever".
John.
Once this is implemented, people will still have to reach into their pockets and pull out their credit cards. At that point, it becomes no different than iTunes or the "new" Napster or any of the others. Everyone downloading free music from those networks will just move on to the next free network. Is there something I'm missing here that makes this time different?
Apart from being short it also repeats itself and is pretty light on the details. Basically it claims to turn an exisiting P2P application/network from having illegal files to only having legal files and legal downloads overnight. Ehm, how? and just as important. Why?
P2P has this deal. In exchange for bandwith I get free content. With this in exchange for bandwidth and cash I get paid for content. So like iTunes and all the others except I need to upload as well? Oh and have a really crummy search?
Right. Kazaa and others are what they are because I don't have to pay for what I download and because what is being shared is made by users. Bootlegs, old records, forgotten recordings, tiny bands. All the stuff you can't find in the shops.
If I am going to pay for downloads I want the bloody receiver of my money to pay for the fucking bandwith and not have to download it from some guys 56k modem. Geez. Is the music industry insane or just stupid?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
fyi, it turned my stomach to implement such a system and we have abandoned drm completely since then.
But not too much, right? I mean, you did do it.
Look people sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in, no matter how trivial it might seem to others or how hard it might be. I've walked away from a job before so I know first hand the hardships it can create but when you do look back on your past instead of regret over an action, you feel pride in yourself. Stop rolling over.
--- I do not moderate.
Clearly the tech industry media is hungry for "rock stars" but what most of us realize is that Shawn Fanning stumbling into writing a groundbreaking application does not make him a visionary. The same holds true for Marc Andreessen.
Someone was going to write the first successful P2P app, and someone was going to write the first successful web browser.
But being that someone doesn't make you a somebody worth caring about when the bright lights have faded.
"These people forget that the DRM'ed content is incompatible with my living room DVD player, my car CD player and my portable MP3 player."
Did I miss something? I have iTMS and an iPod. if I want it in my stereo, I use a $4 cable or a $100 AP Express. If I want it on my home disc player or car disc player I burn a CD.
and my iPod *is* an MP3 player, in common parlance.
What's the hard part?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
This won't fly. For many reasons, but primarily there will be no assurance that what this software removes is truly unlicensed or even the file it thinks it is. And with no way to recoup lost files, it essentially won't gain acceptance. Whoever is hailing this as anything other than draconic needs to be shot.
"I have an odd craving to whisper about those few frightful hours in that ill-rumored and evilly shadowed seaport of dea
Back in the day artists needed the record companies because they provided a medium for distribution of the artists product, in the form of LPs, tapes, CDs, etc. The artists don't really make any money from these distributed media, but they do get their music out into the world. Artists income is primarilly from live performance, and it was healthy income so long as their albums were well distributed by a capable record company. Now, a medium for distribution (Free P2P networks) exists, and it isn't the recording industry so they're going nuts about it because they don't want to die off. What irks me is that they're winning now! Somehow, artists didn't choose to leave record companies, and consumers caved because of the threat of litigation (which I do not mean to make light of, it is a hefty threat). So that leaves us (in the most general sense of the word) working to keep a cumbersome, inefficient and net draining system in place. As I see it, the Recording Industry is really out of context, but it has lots of money in its paws so it's using it to thrash around.
and my iPod *is* an MP3 player, in common parlance.
Only among the hard disk players selling for over $300. Mine is not an over $300 player. It's less than $60 and holds about 700 meg on a shiny disk. I can fit about 12 CD's of stuff in it which is fine for my commute and a day at the office. I don't have to carry a CD case. In raw numbers, I think the CD MP3 players may outnumber iPods simply because they are more affordable. I know of one person at work that has the apple player, however I know 6 that have CD MP3 players. If one is going to get stolen, dropped or otherwise abused in a work environment, I'd rather lose the $50 player, not a $400 player.
If I want it on my home disc player or car disc player I burn a CD.
The shiny disk that fits the portable works in my car, my PC, my laptop, and in my living room DVD player. Why burn a disk that may run for maybe an hour when you can burn a disk that plays everywhere and is good for all day?
MP3's just work. DRM does not. All my public domain old time radio is already in MP3 format.
Did I miss something? I have iTMS and an iPod. if I want it in my stereo, I use a $4 cable or a $100 AP Express.
Why climb behing the cabinet to jocky cables, or buy another player just to play another format in the living room that won't play in my car or portable? It's easier to simply avoid incompatable formats.
Did you buy the Circuit City crippled format player so you could play the non-return rental DVD's? Neither did I. I didn't spend the money to buy DRM enabled players, so I'm not interested in DRM content.
I only bought a DVD player after it was here long enough to be firmly established. I didn't buy any of the $600 DVD players or $40 movies. I have bought a $60 player and some sub $10 movies. I know the movies will play on my next DVD player when mine dies.
Will your music play on your next audio player when your iPod and/or PC dies? My MP3's will work fine on my next MP3 CD player. That's why I support the format and don't support a DRM format. Your gullability to follow the DRM trail disturbes me. Are you thinking ahead, or just for the here and now?
The truth shall set you free!
I think he just did. iTMS is a very easy to use indexing tool which offers a huge catalog in an easily searchable way. You only pay when you find what you want, and $.99 isn't all that much if you've just dropped $400 on a player, and you can rip your existing CDs. Remember, a lot of these folks would buy the CDs anywaym and then have to rip them themselves. iTMS is a huge convenience.
And it's all about convenience. Apple has it down pat, and people are willing to pay for that.
Having had several newbie experiences on P2P myself, a really good, complete indexing service I only pay for when I get content sounds good to me. Make the price closer to allofmp3, and nobody's going to bother getting music over P2P except (a) for the principle of it and (b) they have no money and no job (aka lots of free time) so the time they spnd on P2P has novalue to begin with. The former are a pretty small fraction of the market, and you're not going to get the latter to pay no matter what you do.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?