The old blues by Blind Lemon Jefferson goes like this: "I'm sittin' here wonderin'/Matchbox holdin' my toes/I ain't got no matches/but I sure got a long way to go." Change it to Mashboxx and that's what's holding the toes of Grokster president Wayne Rosso and original Napster mastermind Shawn Fanning. And if they have their way, Mashboxx won't have a long way to go to get up and running and funneling cash to the music business they used to drive to drink.
Using Fanning's new SnoCap music licensing service, Rosso's Mashboxx is aimed at becoming the first peer-to-peer network that you can call a true legal alternative to popular free P2P programs like Rosso's Grokster, as well as to industry-backed pay-to-play download services like iTunes Music Store.
"Our model is regular peer-to-peer," Rosso told reporters December 21, announcing that Mashboxx is being primed for an early 2005 formal launch. "You're going to have all the content you're going to get with all the major [file-sharing] networks. Unauthorized content will not be blocked. Instead, what we're going to be doing is replacing unauthorized content with authorized versions."
SnoCap has confirmed that they're talking to Mashboxx and other possible such partners, but Mashboxx could be the first SnoCap user if they launch when Rosso hopes. It won't keep Mashboxx users from downloading and swapping music but it will force users to pay for what they download and swap, according to several reports.
They're reported to be in discussions with other music companies after Universal Music agreed to set rules for its music in the SnoCap system, according to chief operating officer Ali Aydar, who said SnoCap's contract with retailers requires forcing their customers to follow rules set by holders of the copyrights in question.
Rosso told reporters Mashboxx has options including letting users download radio-quality versions of songs to sample before buying clean digital copies. He also said that, in cases where copyright owners haven't claimed a work, he'll let the work go through the network, while other similar retailers might block pending notice.
"If somebody comes to me and says, 'Our stuff is up there and blah, blah, blah,'" he was quoted as saying, "all I have to say is, 'Give SnoCap a call.'"
