Napster Creator Unleashes New File Sharing Service
Napster was a revolutionary product. It practically gave birth to the p2p industry on the Internet. It has lead to a stage that big corporations of the music industry are practically scared of losing a major chunk of their business from this phenomenon. And they are targeting not only the end users but also the p2p client makers to stop it from being used for piracy.
Napster has gone legal with one of the largest and best branded pay per music download services on the net. Partnerships with Yahoo and the 7-11 Big Gulp have helped to legitimize the name in the public eye. Well, Napster’s father, Shawn Fanning, is looking to spawn off a new revolutionary service which may also sweep the music industry off its feet (in the right direction).
The original creator of the Napster software is now back. With a legitimate service this time. It is called Snocap and it would be using an audio fingerprint technology to identify tracks and limit piracy. They plan to provide an almost unlimited number of sound tracks. Moreover, they are already close to signing up a deal with Universal Music Group, which was one of the major players of the market, which sued Napster in the first place.
A lot of p2p services are emerging planning to provide legitimate file sharing. The lawsuits seem to have taken their toll. Instead of fighting against the music industry, they are providing a platform, which end up helping both the consumers and the labels. Snocap aims to provide labels and artists ability to register and provide content while they manage the distribution channel.
It just needs a proper initiative. If iTunes can lure users to buy a music device (iPod) and than songs from the music store… A well-implemented p2p network can definitely do better!
Sushubh Mittal is the Search Engine Journal Technical Columnist and the Editor of TechWhack.
