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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?
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.
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.
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.