Slashdot Mirror
Bach Launches Updated MP3 Format
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that Bach Technology has rolled out an updated MP3 file format in a bid to combat music piracy. Dubbed "MusicDNA," the new format offers embedded "updatable premium content" like lyrics, videos, news updates, and album artwork. "Using the new technology, music labels and bands will be able to send updates to the music files – with tour dates, interviews or updates to social networking pages – while illegally-downloaded files remain static. ... No major labels have signed up to use MusicDNA so far, but British record company Beggars Group and US label Tommy Boy are both on board. However, the files are likely to be more expensive than MP3 files – according to the BBC – and will have to compete with Apple's iTunes LP, which already provides additional content such as bonus tracks, lyrics and video interviews."
with tour dates, interviews or updates to social networking pages – while illegally-downloaded files remain static.
So if I want to buy music legitly, in addition to paying for the track I will now also get spammed with ads?
Given that one of the main reasons for buying music over simply downloading it is art work, lyrics, and extra content, this might not be a bad idea. IF you can truly restrict access. Otherwise you're just giving more reason to pirate the format.
This was dead before they wrote the first line of the spec. The MP3 genie is out of the bottle and there's no amount of wishful thinking that can be done by the record companies to stuff it back in.
"liberty and justice for all those who can afford it"
Just when the patent on MP3 is set to expire they "update" it with DRM? WTF? This will ensure that the old, soon-to-be free file format will stay around.
I hope Ogg doesn't think since MP3 has this cruft they have to too. Of course, MP3 may be playing catch up with Microsoft; WMA files have had DRM for a long time. The DRM was in fact (and still is) a security risk.
I'll stick with OGG and even better, SHN and FLAC.
Free Martian Whores!
...a "successor to MP3", which removes the most popular feature of MP3, the ability to control your own purchased copy of the property. Yeah, that'll bring back the customers you chased away with the last 3 attempts at controlled digital content.
It can be "updated"...who wants to bet that one kind of "update" is like the Amazon "update" of their sale of Orwell's '1984'...total deletion.
Do not pass "Go", do not collect millions of customers...go directly to the ash-heap of computer history.
I'll just keep ripping cds to .flac and distributing them so others can convert them to whatever audio format they prefer. Seems like a reasonable compromise.
Using the new technology, music labels and bands will be able to send updates to the music files – with tour dates, interviews or updates to social networking pages
They forgot to mention that this would also provide an exploit for malware writers to use to get into people's machines.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I don't know if anybody cares about interviews; but research tends to demonstrate that pirates are, as a body, more enthusiastic about(and bigger consumers of) music than non-pirates.
Now, if anybody actually thinks that this magic new format will be able to distinguish between the evil and the good when it comes to updating with exciting new stuff, I have some very exciting prospects in the field of bridge-related real estate to share with them.
Actually, pirates are the music industry's more valuable customers. It turns out that people who download the most music actually go to the most concerts and buy the most music also. It's still a terrible idea though, since it's basically mp3's with built in ads. I'm not sure where they will find people willing to pay extra for that.
You left out drop the price.
Really folks when a song is less than 99 cents it isn't worth my time to pirate it. If I like it I will buy it.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Maybe a cappella, no lyrics or remix versions of the songs, but those would most likely just be pirated just as as the main music files too.
Maybe versions of the song before the vocal track was processed with AutoTune. When people get to hear the real "talent", the record companies won't have to worry about music piracy ever again (or sales for that matter).
I get all the free RIAA downloads I need from the radio! Just like I used to tape the radio, now I sample it. The only internet downloads I need now are indie music, and they WANT me to download their stuff.
If the RIAA didn't have radio they'd be tickled pink to have you smple their wares from the internet, too. Their true enemy isn't "piracy", it's legitimate competetion from the independant artists, who have discovered that the majors are no longer needed for anything except getting your work on the radio.
If you're in St Louis, KSHE plays seven albums every Sunday night, uncut and uninterrupted and have been doing so for decades. I had Ted Nugent's Stranglehold album on cassette a full week before it went on sale, thanks to KSHE.
This new format does solve one interesting problem -- how to extend the patent on MP3, which is set to expire soon. Too bad copyrights aren't as short a length as patents, and a good thing patents don't last as long as copyrights. If they did, technological progress would be as slow as artistic progress is today. Like science and technology, art draws on what has come before.
Free Martian Whores!
Welcome to the Corporate World Order.
We are no longer consumers. We are consumables. Corporations don't exist to sell us things to fill our needs. We exist to feed their machine.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It wasn't Bach it was The German company Fraunhofer-Gesellshaft that did mp3 in the first place. Extremely shoddy article.