Billboard is hosting the 4th Annual Music & Money Symposium on March 3rd in NYC. Although the one-day conference features a series of panels with top industry executives, perhaps the most interesting session will be Billboard Co-Executive Editor Tamara Conniff’s Q&A with Shawn Fanning. What will the enfant terrible / creator of the Napster P2P revolution have to say to a high-level executive audience? Well, Fanning is now heading up SnoCap, one of the first authorized peer-to-peer services. In fact, as previously reported in Digital Music News, Universal Music has already agreed to license their catalogue to SnoCap, and EMI and Sony BMG are in active negotiations. But exactly how it will work is not exactly clear and the service is not fully operational. However, it is clear that in order to use Fanning’s new service, peer-to-peer companies such as eDonkey and Kazaa would have to agree to keep unauthorized music out --something such large networks that support millions of users might be loathe to do. Perhaps we will get some insights from Fanning himself, and also from Andy Lack. Loeb & Loeb’s John Frankenheimer will conduct a “candid interview” with the CEO of Sony BMG Music Entertainment.

Industry sources say they hope that authorized peer-to-peer will successfully compete with the popular but unauthorized P2P services such as Kazaa and Grokster. But cynics think that the industry flirtation with SnoCap is simply a ploy for the labels to argue that they are actually pro-technology, and only against illegal P2P file-sharing. These cynics continue by saying that the industry is using SnoCap so it can advance this argument to the U.S. Supreme Court in the upcoming oral arguments of the appeal of MGM vs. Grokster next month.

The Ninth Circuit found that Grokster did not violate copyright law because their software could be used to trade legal as well as unauthorized content and that Grokster could not control which files were transferred. The Supreme Court is now set to review that decision. One of the defense’s arguments is that a ruling against Grokster could impede the evolution of technology. But now, the labels can point to their deal with SnoCap to counter-argue that they just want to close down illicit P2P, not kill P2P altogether.

For those who can afford the $950 registration fee, the Music & Money symposium may be worth the trip. Other panelists include Marty Bandier (Chairman & CEO, EMI Music Publishing), Dave Goldberg (VP/GM of Music, Yahoo), and Harold Vogel (President, Vogel Capital Management.) It’s a one day event, and usually a good education.