p2pnet.net News:- “Universal Music executive Larry Kenswil said his record label has been trying for years to launch legitimate versions of file-sharing. But the challenge has been to find a way to make the popular networks legitimately profitable businesses – not ones that make money selling ads targeting a vast audience attracted by the lure of free songs.”

The quote comes in a Buffalo News story centering on Shawn Fanning and Snocap, his latest p2p effort which he describes as “DRM agnostic, offering copyright owners and online retailers the ability to develop services with their DRM of choice”.

DRM does not, and cannot, work. Anything you can see or hear can be copied via various analog and/or digital techniques – Snocap or not.

The story goes on, “The potential here is you’ve got a lot of people using peer-to-peer,” said Kenswil. “If they can be converted to using (licensed) systems that are just as easy to use … then there’s a big upside.”

The Big Music cartel, of which UMG is a member, is already collectively wholesaling tracks at between 65 and 75 cents per, forcing corporate music ‘stores’ to try to offload the mp3s for a dollar and more.

But Kenswil, UMG’s president, is correct: a lot of people – millions upon millions of them, in fact – use the p2p networks, or the likes of Russia’s allofmp3.com which charges only a few cents for downloads. These are the people the major labels’ are trying to sue into buying ‘product’ as it calls its music and they’re being driven to p2p by the Big Four record label cartel’s absurd pricing policies. And it plans to charge even more.

“We’re … interested in distribution models that would allow a consumer to share an encrypted copy of a recording with a friend, and then allow the friend to listen to it a limited number of times, or over a limited time period, before making a purchase decision,” Kenswil told the Buffalo News.

Self-destruct music, in other words. With this as an example of the kind of thinking members of the cartel indulge in, it’s hardly surprising to find they’re failing, and dismally, to meet the digital challeneges of the 21st century.

Relatively speaking, only few individuals in this potentially enormous client base are willing to pay $1-a-download and when the labels boost their prices, even fewer will buy.

Snocap uses Philips audio fingerprinting technology to identify and track music and was picked up by Mashboxx, a soon-to-be launched commercial p2p file sharing service with Wayne Rosso at the front end.

But, “some observers doubt Fanning will be able to win back the tens of millions of people he hooked on free music with Napster,” says the Buffalo News, quoting Michael Gartenberg, research director of Jupiter Research in New York, as saying, “Creating peer-to-peer technology for users to share protected files that have to be purchased isn’t going to change the landscape dramatically.”

Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net

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See:-
Larry Kenswil – Give consumers what they want, p2pnet, March 21, 2005
Buffalo News – Napster founder back with new file-sharing venture, March 21, 2005
a few cents – Big Music loses to AllofMP3.com p2pnet, March 7, 2005

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