After years of bitter battles between copyright holders and file-swapping services, the outlines of a partial truce are emerging that may soon see major record labels partner with peer-to-peer networks to create legal online music stores.
At the center of the detente is Napster creator Shawn Fanning, whose new company, Snocap, has spent the last year building technology designed to identify music on file-swapping networks and turn free song trades into purchases. The company plans to emerge from stealth mode by the end of the year and has already secured licenses to the song catalog of the Universal Music Group.
Fanning’s technology is designed to work behind the scenes of other companies’ services, rather than directly replacing either file-swapping networks like Kazaa or today’s download stores such as Apple Computer’s iTunes Music Store. But several companies are already planning to use the technology, which could allow peer-to-peer networks to become online stores that sell music legally, much like iTunes.
In order to get there, though, peer-to-peer companies would have to agree to keep unauthorized music out–something large networks that support millions of users might be loathe to do.
“There’s nothing we’d like better than to see peer-to-peer (services) selling our music,” said one top label executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “They just can’t be allowing people to steal it at the same time.”
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