Snocap Venture

Shawn Fanning Details Snocap Venture at Digital Music Forum

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 3, 2005 - 7:35am.

New York -- Digital Media Wire hosted its fifth-annual Digital Music Forum at The French Institute in New York on Wednesday, where over 400 readers and digital media industry professionals gathered to attend keynotes and panel discussions on the state of the digital music market. Among the highlights was a keynote interview with Napster founder Shawn Fanning, who for the first time provided details of his new venture, Snocap, which aims to create a central database for digital music rights clearance, in addition to "acoustic fingerprinting" technology that record labels and peer-to-peer networks can use to prevent piracy and monetize file-sharing. "What we're trying to do is enable that vision…and enable that excitement and selection that Napster brought to the world, but do it in a place where people don't have to worry about getting sued; where they can get access to music and know when they download a track they know that it will bet the track they believe it was," said Fanning. Snocap, which plans to launch later this year, has already licensed Universal Music Group's entire catalog for inclusion in its service, and announced today that it has also added the catalog of SonyBMG. An audio file of the Shawn Fanning interview with WIRED editor-in-chief Chris Anderson at the Digital Music Forum is available for download at a link below.

tags: Snocap Venture | Digital Music Forum | Shawn Fanning |