NYT: Music Industry Turns to Napster Creator for Help

[DeepModem Mom]

Music Industry Turns to Napster Creator for Help
By JEFF LEEDS

Published: December 3, 2004


LOS ANGELES, Dec. 2 - As a teenager, Shawn Fanning brought free music to the masses, creating the Napster file-swapping program and unleashing a technological genie that granted the wishes of fans seeking virtually any song at any time - gratis. Now, the recording industry is turning to the college dropout turned cult hero, with dreams of putting the genie back in its bottle.

The major record corporations, who accused Mr. Fanning's Napster of ravaging CD sales and weakening the underpinnings of the industry, now say that a licensed file-sharing system could bolster their position in their legal fight against piracy as well as increase digital music sales.

Mr. Fanning, now 24 and part of a new venture called Snocap, has lately written software that would recognize songs being made available on a peer-to-peer network and let copyright holders set terms for its price and its use by consumers who wish to download them.

Snocap and the music corporations are envisioning an online community where visitors could trade songs without violating copyright laws....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/03/business/media/03peer.html

[Laughing Mirror]

1. Recording industry still trapped in their traditional logic

of passing the cost of promotion onto somebody else, primarily the artist. The majors never could hear of using file-sharing as a kind of universal jukebox to promote their recordings and artists to file-sharers all over the world. If file-sharing was to be a new method of distribution, all the profits would, as before, go in their pockets.

They tried to make digital transfer sound sleazy, at first. "Promotes illicit use" they said. Their attempt to transfer their own inherent sleaziness onto the user and the artist didn't work before. What language will they use this time?

Fanning probably knows his Snocap is a losing proposition, but he may be pitching it and playing it to the industry, and holding on for the ride, as long as it will take him. Jobs and long-term projects are fairly hard to come by these days, after all, for most of us. Fanning is probably no exception.