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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.