Putting the Napster genie back in the bottle

NY Times: Putting the Napster Genie Back in the Bottle. Some interesting nuggets:

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 bête noire until it was shut down by the courts four years ago. ...

Unlike iTunes and other "closed" systems, where people can buy only what the retailer chooses to sell, Mashboxx is a true "open" peer-to-peer system that in theory can download any song from any computer that participates in a file-sharing network. This could include something that a garage band recorded by itself or a free release by an up-and-coming indie group.

If a Mashboxx user tries to download a song that has been registered as copyrighted in Snocap's database, however, Mashboxx will either block the download or substitute a free but low-quality version on which an announcer invites listeners to pay for a high-quality version without announcements if they like what they hear. The free version would expire after being played five times. ...

After a label sends Snocap all the music it currently publishes, the label's executives can use the software to see all the other tracks available from any particular artist. These are what Mr. Fanning calls "gray tracks" - bootleg recordings made by fans at concerts or in secret by recording engineers in studios. By some counts there are 25 million unique files available on the file-sharing networks, and no more than two million available in authorized download stores.

Some artists and labels may well want to quash these gray tracks, which many consider to be inferior versions of their work. But Mr. Fanning predicted that many would choose to make available - and possibly profit from - music that until now was simply contraband. "There is a huge interest on the part of your fans in this stuff," he said, "and it is already traded, if you don't make available, then you will hinder the growth of your artists' careers."