The more things change, the more they remain the same. Here are the threads. Sony Music and BMG are now a merged label. Grokster's right to operate as a P2P company has been affirmed in court. BMG, you might recall, is the label that invested in Napster—the original Napster, before it got shuttered by the RIAA and Judge Marilyn Patel. The other labels sued BMG over that investment, and that lawsuit continues even now. Shawn Fanning, inventer of the original Napster, continued working for the comany when it was briefly a BMG subsidiary, then moved on to a mostly secretive venture, from which whispers emanated about an authorized P2P system. That venture is called Snocap. And back to Grokster for a moment; you might recall that P2P veteran Wayne Rosso (whom I interviewed here) was Grokster's CEO before he migrated to other projects, one of which blew up, costing him some cash.

These threads are woven into a situation now emerging, in which Sony BMG is working out a partnership with Grokster to create an authorized P2P system, using technology developed by Fanning and Snocap. The new venture is called Mashboxx, and is headed by Wayne Rosso. Details are sparse, like … how it'll work. But the reported seriousness of the effort thast brings together Grokster, Sony BMG, and Rosso, is, by itself, a notable development.