rumormonger, digital music, jordan mendelson, layoffs, shawn fanning, snocap

Snocap lays off 60 percent of its employees?

A tipster reports that Snocap, the once-hot digital music startup from Napster founder Shawn Fanning and Silicon Valley bad boy Jordan Mendelson, has laid off 60 percent of its staff, and the company is up for sale. If true, it's not surprising, giving industry trends. Snocap was something of a second coming for Fanning; rather than fight the music labels, he aimed to help them release copy-protected files on peer-to-peer networks, so they'd get paid even if users shared files. But despite cutting a range of deals, the idea never really took off. And lately, the music industry has started to embrace the idea of doing without digital-rights-management software altogether. It's not clear who would want to buy Snocap, really. At any rate, this explains why we haven't seen Mendelson, pictured here in bubblier times, at many parties lately. Anyone hear more about Snocap's firings? Drop us a line.

3:17 PM on Thu Oct 11 2007
By Owen Thomas
3,360 views
9 comments

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LongAgoYahoo at 04:10 PM on 10/11/07
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The music business sucks. No one even has a model that works right now. Until anyone can figure out how to actually make money, there will be lots more of these flameouts
mmasnick at 10:39 PM on 10/11/07
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What do you mean no one is making money? Just about everyone who is not a record label is making money. There are more bands, buying more equipment than ever before. The live music market is booming. Ticketmaster is raking in more cash than ever before. Artists who tour regularly are making more money than ever before. There's more music out there than ever before.

I don't see how anyone can say that the music business sucks these days. The *recording* business sucks, but that's because they bet on the wrong product...
LongAgoYahoo at 05:25 AM on 10/12/07
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Mike, the music business makes a great hobby these days, it makes a lousy business.
LongAgoYahoo at 05:29 AM on 10/12/07
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BTW mike, have you ever worked in the music business (live or recorded)? You've sure spout a lot of opinions about what they need to do on techdirt.

How much money have you made selling music? Put your career where your mouth is, start a business for musicians.

Or don't you believe enough in your rants to bet your career on it...

Shit or get off the pot.
From: WWW.VENTUREBEAT.COM: TRACKBACK at 07:54 AM on 10/12/07
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Snocap, the company that wanted to let bands set their own licensing terms for music downloads across the Web, has cut its staff by 60 percent, CNET has confirmed.
Paul Boutin at 09:40 AM on 10/12/07
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Connectedness Index: 108
Brought to you by Acura TSX

Missing from this post: How many employees did Snocap have? Was that 60 percent of 10, 100 or 1000?
From: XRRF.BLOGSPOT.COM: TRACKBACK at 05:10 PM on 10/12/07
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Snocap, Shawn Fanning's post-Napster attempt to build a peer-to-peer service which kept the labels happy, seems to be running aground.
From: WWW.TECHDIRT.COM: TRACKBACK at 06:57 PM on 10/12/07
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I have to admit that I never understood the purpose behind Snocap, Shawn Fanning's "second act" after Napster. The idea was that it would help artists sell music... by wrapping it up in DRM. As we pointed out when it launched, any business model based on DRM is doomed from the start.
Tim Faulkner at 12:36 PM on 10/15/07
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Cnet's Greg Sandoval got the numbers from Snocap's CEO Rusty Rueff. The company went from 57 employees to 26. 54% of the staff. [www.news.com]