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The music company, Snocap, founded in 2002 by the former
Napster founder Shawn Fanning has announced that it was laying off 60 percent of
its workforce. The company confirmed also earlier reports from various blogs
that it may e pursuing a sale.
In an interview with CNET Snocap
CEO Rusty Rueff confirmed that its time to sell the company and he said the
layoffs were designed to help make the company more attractive to a buyer.
Snocap was considered as Fanninng’s effort to enter into the
legal music download market, but the music companies were reluctant to work
with him.
The only major success achieved by Snocap is its partnership
with the social networking site MySpace, announced in September 2006.
Through the partnership, Snocap has become the provider of
digital music retail tools for MySpace, marking the first music e-commerce deal
for both companies. The SNOCAP services enabled artists and labels with
registered content to set pricing, create stores, and sell their music in MP3
format.
Snocap said that its MyStores have attracted more than
175,000 registered consumers, and over 80,000 artists have created their own
storefronts.
In July this year Snocap has signed a license agreement with
EMI to sell the DRM-free tunes through its MyStores.
Despite these efforts, it seems like Snocap failed to become
a major competitor in the already crowded digital downloads market, which is
dominated by Apple’s iTunes store.
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