Download mp3 music rock

They've got their MP3, for now - digital music players

MP3 digital music players may rock the shelves of retail stores

In efforts to bring D'music to D'masses of Internet listeners, Pine Technology has rolled out its MP3 compliant product, the D'music player.

But this online answer to the CD-man, distributed by Markham, Ont.-based Samtack, is only adding to the mix of new devices designed to revolutionize the music industry by making it easy to download and playback digital audio files from the Internet.

Several products, including Diamond Multimedia's Rio and Creative Labs' Nomad are already playing to an Internet-savvy audience, and more are sure to join the band after a U.S. court recently pumped up the potential of MP3 products.

On June 15, a U.S. ninth circuit judge crushed the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)'s attempt to sue Diamond Multimedia under the contention that MP3-based hardware would encourage music piracy.

Needless to say, the producers of the little machines are happy with the decision, and Samtack said retailers too will benefit - all types of retailers.

"This is taking us down a new avenue we haven't thought about," said Royson Ng, vice-president of marketing at Samtack. "We are looking at Radio Shack and The Bay, then music stores."

In other words, Samtack is telling computer retailers to gear up for competition when selling the devices that are already rocking the shelves of Future Shop.

"The fact that so many vendors on the computer side - Diamond, Creative and Pine and then some traditional electronics retailers like Samsung - shows that (popularity) will increase," said James Hardcastle, purchaser for Vancouver-based Future Shop. "I expect MP3 products will help increase our business many, many times through Q499."

The beauty of MP3, according to its promoters, is that it is about music - opening up a universal market base. "This is for anybody who loves music, anybody who needs to record music or voice for business and that is anybody," said Ng.

The MP3 standard, which was agreed upon last year, is an Internet standard that takes audio files and compresses them to a size that is manageable to download over the Internet. A typical MP3 file works out to about a tenth of a regular audio CD.

The ability to download audio files so quickly makes it easy for users to download a song and e-mail it to many people quickly.

"MP3 is changing music distribution," said Mark Jamieson, Canadian director for Creative Labs. "The standard gives you better compression, smaller file sizes and quicker downloads.

"This will help everyone but the record companies."

But that doesn't mean everyone will be buying the music players right away.

"My suspicion is that the first customers will be early adopters who like new technology," said Hardcastle. "The gadget people . . . who also want portable music."

Although MP3-compliant products plug into a CPU with a parallel port connection, store music in flash memory and replay it on command, not every music aficionado is also a technology lover. And those who love the audio quality they get from a CD-player now, may not appreciate the MP3 yet.

"The quality is near CD quality I think, but I'm not an audiophile," said Hardcastle.

The industry agrees that the future will be see some type of regulation to avoid the possibility of piracy and retailers will have to be ready for upgrades on the technology. The Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), for example, reached a consensus on specifications for new music players on June 28.

SDMI-compliant players will reject music files pirated from the Internet.