snocap

As expected, Imeem bails out Snocap by acquiring it

Social-media site Imeem, which focuses on ad-supported music and video playlists, announced Monday that it has acquired Snocap, the music-licensing company founded by Napster creator Shawn Fanning. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Reports of the acquisition had first surfaced in February.

The deal is all about Snocap's technology, as the company hasn't exactly been healthy recently: over half of its staff was let go last year. But the tools Snocap created, which handle digital music licensing and which power embeddable music-sale stores, appealed to Imeem, which was already using Snocap technology to identify files that users uploaded to … Read more

Report: Imeem acquires Snocap

Social network, Imeem, has acquired struggling music-licensing company, Snocap, the company cofounded by Shawn Fanning of Napster fame, according to a published report

TechCrunch, citing an unnamed source, reported that the deal is being finalized this week.

Snocap offers to handle copyright and music licensing for musicians and also powers embeddable download stores that artists can place on any site. From these digital-music vending machines, musicians sell their own music.

In October, Snocap CEO Rusty Rueff told CNET News.com that the company had cut its staff from 56 to 26.

'Sometimes the best deal is no deal at all'

Words to live by from CD Baby founder and president Derek Sivers.

I've blogged enthusiastically about CD Baby before: I've used the service and recommend it without reservation. Artists who own the distribution rights to their music--which includes just about any unsigned artist--can send as few as 5 CDs (or as many as they like) to CD Baby. For a one-time fee of $35 and 9% of all sales, CD Baby provides an online store front and handles fulfillment. They also have a digital distribution service that places your music in iTunes and other online stores, and takes … Read more

Episode 582: Robot love

Snocap CEO on layoffs: 'pioneers take arrows'

On the morning after laying off 54 percent of his staff, Snocap CEO Rusty Rueff, greeted me in his San Francisco office.

Guarded at first, Rueff slowly began offering details on Friday about why the music-licensing company, cofounded in 2002 by Shawn Fanning of Napster fame, cut its workforce from 57 to 26 employees and put itself up for sale.

Shawn Fanning's Snocap lays off 60 percent of workforce

UPDATE (12:15 p.m. PDT Friday): CNET News.com interviewed Snocap CEO Rusty Rueff after this story was published. He says the company's music stores just weren't catching on fast enough and its time to sell the company. You can read what he has to say in this story.

Snocap, the music-licensing company best known for being the follow-up act of Napster founder Shawn Fanning, has cut its staff by 60 percent, a spokeswoman for the company said Thursday evening.

Founded in 2002 by Fanning, Jordan Mendelson, and Ron Conway, Snocap started out trying to provide digital-music … Read more

Warner settles with Imeem

Online community Imeem launched in August 2005, and although I wasn't familiar with the service at the time, it sounds like a blend of several popular features: social networking, instant messaging, blogging and photo sharing. At some point, the company added a feature that would let users create playlists from their personal music collections, then stream these playlists to other users. By spring 2007, the service claimed 16 million active users.

The concept was a bit like MySpace.com, and like that site, Imeem eventually drew a copyright infringement lawsuit from a major record label--Warner Music Group, in this … Read more