[ProgSoc] I want my MP3...

[alister air <alister.air@nospam.uts.EDU.AU>]

This might be of interest... I wonder whether it'll actually work.  I
suspect it won't.

http://www.smh.com.au/breaking/19990629/A25705-1999Jun28.shtml

Digital music player specs to prevent Internet piracy
Source: ABC | Published: Tuesday June 29 11:35:54 AM 

San Francisco: New specifications for digital music players it is
claimed will eventually prevent people from illegally downloading
copyrighted music over the Internet have been announced by a coalition
of major record labels and electronics manufacturers.

On a yet-to-be determined date, new music released by the major record
producers will be digitally encrypted to prevent piracy, the Secure
Digital Music Initiative said today.

At that point, only devices that can recognise the coding will play the music.

Diamond Multimedia, which makes the popular and controversial Rio
portable digital music player, said it will comply with the new standards.

Record companies have been striving to combat widespread music piracy as
increasingly available technology makes it easy to spread high-quality
digital music files across the Internet. Rio players in particular have
served as a focal point for the debate because they do not require
copyright protection to play music in the MP3 compression format.

New devices, available as early as Christmas, would initially support
all current digital music formats, including MP3. After the new digital
standard is implemented, consumers would only be able to play songs on
the machines that recognised the digital watermark.

Future versions of Rio players will be completely SDMI-compliant, said
Lorraine Comstock, of Diamond's RioPort division.

'SDMI will enable the future of music and today's announcement signals
to consumers that this future is coming quickly. This future holds the
promise that consumers will have access to vast amounts of exciting new
content with a new level of portability,' SDMI director Leonardo
Chiariglione said in a statement.

Industry members adopted the design specifications during a conference
in Los Angeles earlier this month. They are under technical review and
are to be ratified and made public by July 8.

Analysts said the security features, however cumbersome, were inevitable.

'I think for the traditional music industry to back this, there has
obviously going to have to be some fairly rigorous copyright
protection,' said Clay Ryder, an analyst for Zona Research.

The SDMI members include each of the big five record labels - BMG
Entertainment, EMI Recorded Music, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal
Music Group and Warner Music Group - all looking to capitalise on the
growing digital music marketplace while protecting artist and label copyrights.

The Recording Industry Association of America lost a suit earlier this
month to halt sales of the Rio - a portable machine that carries about
an hour's worth of CD-quality MP3 music on a computer chip.

--

Alister Air                     | "Excuse me for not answering your
Faculty Computing Manager (HSS) | letter sooner, but I've been so
Information Technology Division | busy not answering letters that I
University of Technology Sydney | couldn't get round to not answering
Ph:  9514 1277   Fx:  9514 1595 | yours in time." --Marx, Groucho.--
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