|
From aiding piracy to authorized downloads - is Napsterization reaching its logical
end?
Started as a service which threatened to snatch revenues from the
giant music companies, Napster.com became a legend. And a generic term for unauthorized
music downloads.
Today, after years of strife, the Napster technology will soon be put to use
by the same giant music companies - for the next generation of music distribution!
Watershed for Music Industry
Calling it great timing or just coincidence
- but the month of June 2005 saw two related watershed events for the music industry.
And both were connected to online music distribution - the future of the record
& entertainment industry!
• The 1st incident involves a decision of
the U.S. Supreme Court
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed an earlier judgement
which had ruled in favour of unauthorized P2P networks Grokster & StreamCast -
on charges of secondary copyright infringement. (The Supreme Court held Grokster
liable because it had taken no steps to prevent unauthorized sharing of copyrighted
music and movie files.)
• The 2nd was an agreement between music major
& file sharing network
Self-styled music download service Mashboxx announced
its 1st licensing deal with major recording label SONY BMG. Mashboxx claims to
be the world's first P2P application whose business plan involves authorized content
from major record labels. Unlike its predecessors, who facilitated free sharing
of digital tunes across the Internet, Mashboxx (founded in September 2004) will
only allow authorized music downloads.
Taking
iTunes a Step Forward
iTunes.com, Apple Computer's online music download
store has set new milestones for the digital music business, selling more than
400 million tracks @ $ 0.99 each. In keeping with its reputation of Apple Computer's
brilliant user-interfaces, iTunes provides one of the best download experiences
on the Mac or PC or iPod.
Although like iTunes, Mashboxx will also sell
authorized songs, its model is different from iTunes. Because unlike iTunes, Mashboxx
will not host music titles on its website.
It will instead permit its
users to search the major existing file sharing networks for music titles. But
unlike its predecessors, Mashboxx will actively prevent copyright violations by
checking each file (music track) for its "digital fingerprint".
The underlying
technology, incidentally is based on Snocap, a company founded by Shawn Fanning,
the founder of Napster.com.
P2P
- Going Where No Record Label Has Gone Before!
Doing
what was many thought was impossible, Sony BMG has taken a bold step by embracing
file sharing. By now, it is clear that the future of the digital music industry
is based peer-to-peer file sharing. So, instead of fighting a losing battle with
technology which is obviously here to stay, Sony BMG has ushered in the future
- an era of a digital content, Internet & P2P technology.
Sony
BMG's bold step along with the Court ruling against Grokster, are expected to
encourage many available & future technologies for legitimizing file-sharing services.
And may ultimately see Grokster (& other peer-to-peer services for unauthorized
content) adopting technology like Mashboxx.
| Mashboxx,
Napster & Grokster
Napster was the first file sharing technology which facilitated peer-to-peer
sharing of music titles (& other files) between users over the Internet. Embroiled
in litigation & controversy, Napster finally closed down its service within
a couple of years of start-up.
Mashboxx
(started in September 2004) claims to
be the world's first P2P application with content authorized by major record labels.
The software will allow consumers to search for content on most of the major file
sharing networks and thus offer the largest selection of authorized music downloads
to be found online.
Grokster is one of a number of existing file
sharing services which facilitates free exchange of any file (including copyrighted
material) between users over the Internet. Based on the original Napster model,
Grokster has recently recieved a major setback by the U.S. Supreme Court - who
has pinned the liability of ensuring that shared content does not infringe on
copyright laws on the file-sharing service.
Mashboxx was founded by ex
Grokster President Wayne Rosso. And Mashboxx will work closely with Snocap
(headed by Napster founder Shawn Fanning), to identify songs by their digital
"fingerprint" to check for copyright. Snocap has deals with all 4 major music
labels Universal, Sony BMG, EMI & Warner.
Mashboxx plans to sell authorized
music titles for $ 0.99 per track (same as iTunes.com), with option to preview
entire track, before purchase. | The
Final Word
One school of thought feels that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling
against Grokster is a possible source of discouragement to development of new
peer-to-peer products & technologies which challenge outmoded ways of selling
music & entertainment titles.
It is true that besides being one of the
premier marketing tools for exposing new artists & new songs, P2P networks are
quite clearly the future of the entertainment industry. However, if Mashboxx successfully
implements its deal with Sony BMG, we may see the dawn of a new, technology driven
entertainment industry. |
