MP3 Winners and Losers for 2003

An anonymous reader writes "Richard Menta over at MP3newswire.net just posted his annual winners and losers list in digital music for last year. The big winner is Apple for dominating MP3 portable player sales and the dramatic success of its iTunes service. Napster savior Roxio and the small independent record labels also made the winners list. The losers list include SonicBlue and MP3.com. Interestingly, Ogg Vorbis made the losers list, not because of the codec per se, but because iTunes has both catapulted the AAC format to number two and stimulated Microsoft to pour more of its efforts ($$$) into WMA and the iTunes clones, leaving little room left for the open source alternative. The 2001 and 2002 winners list are worth a look too and each have links to that year's losers list."

Comments

Re:MP3.com.co

[squiggleslash]

It was bought by CNet. There was a minor bit of excitement as Michael Robertson, MP3.com's founder and current big-cheese at Lindows.com, noted CNet's plans were to close the entire thing down and maybe start something afresh using the domain name (essentially, they bought the domain name for a godawful amount of cash) and felt they should at least pass on MP3.com's music archive to someone else to store.

MP3.com declined, as far as we're aware the music archive that was at that site is now dead, and so is the site itself.

There's a bit about it here if you're interested.

disagree

[real_smiff]

MP3 was won.. long before WMA appeared. It offers transparency on all but a few special samples at around 200kbps, and with storage getting cheaper, slightly more efficient codecs (Ogg Vorbis, for example) don't offer enough of an advantage for most people to move. I won't touch WMA with a long barge pole.. just because you made the (mistake IMHO) of going over completely to it, doesn't mean anyone else has to. Go read some very informative discussion at Hydrogenaudio.org for specific technical reasons not to use WMA.. other than being from Microsoft etc. Of course, there is a danger that many people will use WMA just because MS make it easy for them to get into it... but why that's a reason to advocate WMA, i can't imagine. It's unlikely MP3 support will be dropped in hardware any time soon I think... i'd be more worried about your sound quality and portability of those WMA files.

Re:ITMS is the true winner

[timeOday]

I just wanted to say that the iTunes Music Store has reinvented how I view music.

Now when I want a piece of music, I have it, instantly. And with my iPod, I can listen to it wherever I go, with no worries!

That description also fits Napster ca 1998 perfectly!

Of course the player back then would have been a Rio for sure. In fact if you remember, Diamond pioneered the idea not only by releasing the product, but by fending off an RIAA lawsuit that challenged the legitimacy of such products! (Of course the iPod is DRM'd so maybe it doesn't really owe to this legacy).

IRiver

[Gyan]

The iHp-120 is a winner too and it plays Ogg.

Re:Don't feed the trolls!

[AstroDrabb]

1) Ogg/Vorbis is supported by (obscure mp3 player). Why should I get that (*drool*) new, affordable iPod?

Yeah, your comment makes sense if you consider, all of these "obsure"

Neuros Digital Audio Computer
Rio Karma
iRiver iHP-100, iHP-115, iHP-120, iGP-100, iFP-3xxt, iFP-5xxt
Kenwood's Music Keg
And a bunch of others.
IMO, the Neuros is much better then the iPod. Is cheaper and the battery replacement is from $0 - $12 depending on if it is in warranty or not, which is much cheaper then Apple's $50 or so.

2) Ogg/Vorbis can work in a DRM-based business model! Here is how: Step 1: Get five candles and a live goat.

Umm, Ogg/Vorbis is an Open Source codec released under a BSD style license. You can wrap it in any proprietary DRM you want and save tons of money from not having to a) write your own codec or b) pay royalties to use someone elses.

Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads

[MichaelCrawford]

Many unsigned and independent artists provide free downloads of their music as a way to publicize themselves. I list many places to find them in my article Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads.

For example, iRATE Radio is a free (as in speech) downloader that fetches MP3s from websites that provide free, legal downloads. It uses collaborative filtering to learn your tastes and select songs based on the ratings of other users who like the same kind of music you do. iRATE's database of MP3 URLs has 46,000 tracks registered.

My article has a Creative Commons license. I urge you to copy and distribute it. In addition, I'm looking for help in translating it to languages other than english. The first such translation, to Romanian, was performed by an incredibly helpful fellow named Ciprian Mihet: Legaturi catre Zeci de Mii de Download-uri Legale de Muzica.

The article also discusses what you can do to make peer-to-peer filesharing of music legal. That's a realistic possibility, considering that more Americans share files with p2p apps than voted for George Bush in the last election.

That's why I want to get every US p2p user to read my article before the upcoming US elections, in November of this year. I want copyright reform - meaning much more than just the repeal of the DMCA - to be a central issue in the upcoming election.