Originally published December 18 2005
Napster creator gets along with big business
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Shawn Fanning will launch a new version of Grokster sanctioned by the record industry by the end of the year. He built technology that requires users to pay for copyrighted material. His new company "Snocap" produced the software.
SHAWN FANNING turns 25 on Tuesday, and it's been a very long seven years since he wrote a little computer program that let him trade electronic music files with his dorm mates at Northeastern University in Boston, where he was a freshman.
He called it Napster, after his nickname, and it quickly grew into an Internet phenomenon - not to mention the music industry's b�te noire until it was shut down by the courts four years ago.
This month, Grokster, one of the file-sharing services that emerged after the original Napster vanished, stopped distributing its software and agreed to pay the record industry $50 million, which it has no prospect of ever raising.
By year-end, a new version of Grokster will appear - this one sanctioned by the record industry because it will use technology, built by Mr. Fanning, that requires file-swappers to pay for copyrighted material.
In other words, Mr. Fanning, who let the genie out of the bottle when he created the copyright-busting Napster, is now selling a way to put the genie back into the bottle.
His new company, called Snocap, has produced software that can enable music services to fulfill the original promise of Napster - a community of dedicated fans exchanging a wide selection of music - while monitoring the file-trading for copyrighted works.
The new Grokster will still use peer-to-peer technology, which lets users download songs directly to one another's computers.
After the original Napster closed, the name was sold to a new company that sells licensed music under paid subscriptions and does not use peer-to-peer technology.
He wants to create an open system that would allow anyone with music to share - big labels and garage bands alike - to register their works with Snocap and set the economic terms under which songs could be traded.
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