Downloading file mp3

Digital age set to rock; MP3 threatens music biz, gives artists a voice

As a new model for the distribution of digital music sweeps the market, the worldwide recording industry is shaking in its boots.

Music aficionados from all over the globe are coming out of the woodwork to cast their vote on MP3 technology - a popular but contentious standard for downloading music that has hit a sour note with the Big Five record labels.

Its formal name is MPEG1 Layer 3 and it allows audio files to be reduced to about one-twelfth their size with virtually no loss in quality.

MP3 is music to the ears of early adopters: cash-strapped college students downloading Morphine and Public Enemy tunes off the Net, or tech-savvy netizens storing single tracks on their walkman-like digital audio players.

The financial ramifications for the likes of Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, BMG Entertainment, EMI Recorded Music and the Universal Music Group, however, are enough to put a big dent in company pocket books. The music industry's losses to MP3 piracy are conservatively gauged at about US$1 billion a year, suggests Brian Robertson, the president of the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA).

"It (MP3) is arguably the recording industry's number-one problem worldwide and the reason is the technology has been about 18 months out of reach of the recording industry's ability to control it," Robertson says.

"I mean you've essentially got a lawless society there which is an out-of-control area whereby tens of thousands of sound recordings are illegally posted, (and there are) probably hundreds of thousands of downloads daily. What is going on is mostly illegal and right now we have no way to control these transactions."

He says the CRIA is firing off 15 to 20 cease-and-desist letters a week to warn illegal MP3 Web sites across Canada to shut down. But it's a move Kevin Hause, manager of consumer device research for Framingham, Mass.-based International Data Corp. (IDC), says is fruitless because it's like "shoveling snow in a blizzard."

Hause, however, agrees MP3 technology is "bristling the hairs" of the major record labels and has drawn fire from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Last fall, RIAA filed a lawsuit against Diamond Multimedia Systems Inc. alleging its Rio portable player violated the Audio Home Recording Act. RIAA lost the bid and subsequently refocused its efforts.

Today, in an effort to combat the threat, battle plans are being formulated by both the music and technology industries - mighty impressive plans backed by the RIAA. One effort sees more than 50 companies locking horns to form the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) in a bid to develop an open specification that will protect copyrighted music in all existing and emerging digital formats and through all delivery channels.

In a nutshell, the new specification - slated for release by June 30 - will help combat the proliferation of Internet music piracy and lead the industry into the area of e-commerce. The goal is to develop a compact, high-quality music file format for the Net. In addition to MP3, two formats already exist, including Liquid Audio Inc.'s Liquid Trax and AT&T's a2b.

The call for Web-based music distribution game sees industry players scurrying to develop equipment and standards.

"Just because the SDMI is working on this doesn't mean that whatever direction they decide is going to be gospel," IDC's Hause quips, indicating that precedent for these large-scale type groups often lead to dissent.

Big players could come in and sweep the mat out from under their feet by developing an alternative, he says. Microsoft recently announced plans to develop its own version of the MP3 standard, which could potentially create music files that are half the size of MP3 files.

But the SDMI, as a whole, keeps on plugging.

The group's Portable Device Working Group recently held its first gathering to hammer out ways to bring SDMI compliant products and services to consumers for the 1999 year-end holiday season, says Cary Sherman, the RIAA's senior executive vice-president and general counsel. "The devil in this thing is always in the details. Therefore, how one gets to that next level is going to be a key and difficult process."

Other weapons in the arsenal include IBM's Madison Project - a downloading test equivalent to an MP3 site - and Sony's idea to install silicon anti-piracy chips on every audio player.

Regardless of the countless uncertainties, potential power alignments and the race to develop standards, one thing is clear: There's no stopping the spread of digital music.

MP3 will boom this year once more digital music products start to parade onto the market, says Hause, adding it's not until next year and into 2001 that we'll begin to see a standard taking root, even if it is a de facto one.

Steve Grady is spokesman for Palo Alto, Calif.-based GoodNoise Corp., a firm licensed by recording companies to sell MP3 files over the Web. Grady agrees MP3 is the way of the future. "Everybody's going to be trying to leapfrog everyone else and that's good for us, because it's going to move us along very quickly," he says in reference to potential hardware players coming to bat with an array of digital equipment.

GoodNoise's deals with Salem, Mass.-based Rykodisc, an independent record label, and with Singapore-based Creative Technology Ltd, a developer of multimedia solutions, signal the beginning of something big, Grady says.

Rykodisc, for its part, has seen Web traffic bulge from 14,000 a week up to about 30,000 on its own MP3-related site, says Lars Murray, director of new media. "This shows that MP3 is definitely the biggest game in town."

But things aren't as financially hot as one might expect, research from New York City-based Jupiter Communications indicates. Sales of online music via digital distribution will only reach US$30 million, or 2.2 per cent of total online music sales (which include CDs sold over the Web).

And what are the artist's saying? Many are singing MP3's praises, says Deborah Klein, band manager for alternative rockers Morphine, because it gives them a voice.

"The buzz right now among bands and artists is that this is kind of like a way of regaining control over your master recordings. I'm not saying that we want to cut out the record company, but it's just a way to, make music available directly to the fans. And it's definitely something intriguing to think about for the future."

Even Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn has jumped on the MP3 bandwagon.

Wofgang Spegg, president of Toronto's musicmusicmusic Inc. and operator of Web radio station Radio Moi, the music industry is at a crossroads. But he adds, "The music industry is slow to change."