AfterDawn: News

Just two days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the owners of filesharing networks can be held liable under circumstances for the copyright infringement taking place by users using the software, Sony BMG has inked a deal with a P2P firm, Mashboxx. Wayne Rosso, former president of Grokster, heads the Mashboxx project, which is a filesharing network that will require music sharers to pay for their downloads. A Sony BMG song would cost 99c on the service just like iTunes.

However, one major difference to iTunes is that Mashboxx will allow users to preview tracks a number of times before they pay to keep them permanently. Mashboxx uses technology called Snocap, created by Napster founder Shawn Fanning. Snocap can identify songs using a digital fingerprint and determine whether they are copyrighted or not. Although services like Mashboxx still have competition with other "unauthorised" P2P networks, the Supreme Court did the legal services a favour on Monday with its ruling.



Sony BMG CEO Andy Lack hopes the Grokster ruling will encourage owners of other P2P services to incorporate technology like Snocap so that users will be charged for their music downloads. "There's an opportunity to employ lots of different technologies that legitimize these file-sharing services," he said. "A lot of them didn't want to come to the table until this ruling." All four major record labels currently have deals with Snocap, and negotiations are on-going with some Independents.

Sources:
Reuters
p2pnet

Written by: James Delahunty @ 29 Jun 2005 23:12