Thomson Offering Lock for MP3 Files
When German audio engineers developed the MP3 format in the early 1990s, they unwittingly created the currency of online music piracy -- song files that could be copied freely and downloaded swiftly.
Music fans embraced the format, but it was snubbed by record labels and online music services because there was no way to stop MP3s from being bootlegged.
Now Thomson, the French company that distributes MP3 technology, is trying to make amends to the music industry. It's adding electronic locks that a record label can use to limit the number of times a song can be duplicated onto CDs or portable devices.
Thomson, however, may have a tough time finding an audience for this version.
The online music market already is crowded with competing secure formats from Microsoft Corp., Apple Computer Inc., RealNetworks Inc. and Sony Corp. Their incompatibility gives record label executives heartburn, and Thomson's move adds a fifth format that doesn't work with any of the others.
Plus, songs encoded in the new format won't work on many older digital music players for which the original MP3 is the lingua franca.
Figuring out how to make locked music files that play on a range of software and devices -- "that's what people should be worried about," said Lawrence Kenswil, president of ELabs at Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group.
Nevertheless, Thomson executives hope that the music industry will look at the update as the best of both worlds: It has the familiarity and cachet of the MP3 name and the security of electronic locks.
By embracing the new format, music services may start drawing the masses away from illegal downloads on file-sharing networks, said Rocky Caldwell, a director of technology marketing, patents and licensing for Thomson.
"MP3 is a brand the average consumer
That logic led Roxio Inc. to pay $5 million for the Napster brand and some of its technology in November 2002. But the new Napster service that Roxio launched in October didn't take the online music world by storm -- it's a distant second behind Apple in downloadable songs sold and has attracted fewer subscribers than at least three other services.
One factor is that Roxio's fee-based version of Napster is very different from the original, which enabled people to copy MP3s free from one another's computers. Similarly, Thomson is changing one of the central features of the MP3 format -- its ability to be copied and moved without limitation -- by adding what's known as digital rights management software, or DRM.
