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Diamond spins off Rio
mykey2k writes "This story tells that Diamond is going to spin off Rio as a new company and the new Rio will have anti-piracy built-in. "
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Remember though - these systems are total solutions - i.e. they include idiot-proof software to make MP3's out of audio CD's and cram them into the device.
;)
I still can't see the piracy issues with these things. They're basically one-way devices- i.e. you can't easily extract the MP3's back out of them (AFAIK). Try putting a palmpilot-like IR port so you can beam songs to your friends and *then* watch the RIAA scream
Off the SDK page:
>With the MP3Plus Authoring Kit, your content is
>never 'in the clear' (unless you want it to be),
>and it's protected against rippers. Your music
>remains your music.
Sorry, charlie, but if I can hear it, I can record it almost losslessly, set up my stereo on my front porch, and play it on repeat all day for my whole neighborhood to hear if I feel like it.
The moral of the story?
1. Thank goodness no matter how hard the RIAA tries, they can never control my entire signal path, from source to speakers
2. Even though programmers should know better, the claim is pretty misleading. Perhaps they used the work "rippers" to imply protection from perfect digital copy, which would be even worse, because they realize they can't really protect the music and they try to make it sound like they can.
And now let's see Divx's "Features"
Hmm...
You know what IOMEGA stands for don't you?
Incredibly
Overpriced
Media
Every
Guy
Abhors
IOmega seems to have trouble with the concept of reasonably priced media. Maybe after this new restructuring they'll finally get their prices out of the stratosphere and get some of the market back.
I read the internet for the articles.
Did S3 already buy them and jettison the Rio, or is it that the buyout hasn't happened yet and Diamond is dropping the Rio to look more profitable?
Whether they hate the RIAA or not really isn't an issue. As one poster pointed out portable MP3 players won't really take off till Joe Average has access to bandwidth. I'd amend that with they won't take off till Joe Average has convenient access to music. One way to get this music is by downloading it as a lot of us do now. Another way would be if you could go to a music store and upload it from their server. This is where Joe Average normally gets his music. Getting downloadable digital media into record stores across the country would be a big win for RIO. This won't happen unless record companies feel secure in releasing mainstream music through this means. Anti-piracy measures would be one means to help this.
The Sony Walkman succeeded because it was a portable device that enabled the user to listen to music of their choosing, and their was a wide range of music readily available. Of course a lot of this music wasn't bought and payed for, this annoys the RIAA. Now they've got a jihad against anything that is capable of recording or deploying user recorded music. It's dumb and pointless, but its there, witness the backlash against CD recorders etc.
If RIO is smart they'll make sure it can still play ordinary MP3. If not they'll be in the running for the shortest time from IPO to Chapter 11 protection. Let the RIAA bandwagon deploy music in their protected format, which Joe Average will eat up, but make sure that the device is happy playing regular MP3.
Also make sure that any competing company can build compatible players for a reasonable fee, otherwise you'll have a format fight which will kill the technology.
Why not make mix tapes? It's cheaper, less work, more music, and skip-proof. Silly people.
I agree with most of what you said, especially the fact that 64MB is insufficient. I would KILL for a CD-R based MP3 portable, okay maybe not kill but definitely Maim.
1. Mix tapes cheaper
Maybe? hard to tell - what specifically are we comparing? Tape -> FlashCard (tape wins), Tape -> HD/CD-R (HD/CD-R wins)
2. Less work?
It's a lot easier for me to select a bunch of files and copy them to the RIO than sit around mixing different tapes/CD's to a single tape, what a hassle.
3. More music
Indubitably.
4. Skip-proof
So is the Rio, what's you're point?
I'm not convinced the rio is a good value, I'm still waiting for MP3-CDR players. I already have the disks burned, that's what I'm listening to at work right now. But my MP3Jukeboxen is a pretty good value, 160 Albums storage (expandable of course), infinitely configurable for about $300. Plus it has serious toy value, as well as serving as a Samba file server (incredibly useful). I think I'll be needing to buy another HD for it in a couple months.
So build one. With these new MP3 decoder chips, a microcontroller, a CD-ROM drive, and a smattering of glue logic, you should be able to put together one of these for less than $200 easily. And you can customize it to suit your own sense of aesthetics and usability.
Posted by Fatz2001:
:)
Music should be GPL. That way I can have the source to the music, change it, and recompile it as music-2.3.8 and let other people download and use the changes I have made. Then we can package it and call it Music 6.0, oh wait, never mind about the Music 6.0 thing, let's just call it music.
BTW, Slashdot this:
http://www.linuxhaven.com
Here's a URL containing the info-sheet on the technology the new Rio purports to use:
http://www.intertrust.com/prod ucts/mp3plussheet.html
Some points of note:
Then I guess I'd either buy a Rio now or get something else. That's the whole point of MP3 as far as I'm concerned - there is no way I will continue to pay $17+ per CD new - and nearly that much used nowadays - as long as I can find the songs on the 'net or borrow a CD from a friend and rip/encode it.
If the recording industry drops CD prices to a reasonable amount (reasonable in my case being around $8) instead of increasing CD prices as they have done over the last year or so, even beyond the prices at which they originally debuted and I will start buying CDs again.
Until then, call me a music pirate and proud of it.
Hopefully new artists will embrace MP3 and we can forget that there was ever a bloodsucking recording industry to begin with. Use the same techniques as the Open Source Software movement - give away the songs for free to get people's attention so you can sell things like merchandise and concert tickets. (Since the bands make next-to-zero on albums anyway, it shouldn't make that much difference to their bottom line and at least this way they can try to get a larger cut of the merchandise/concert profits since there's no record company to siphon away 95% right off the top.)
They're basically one-way devices- i.e. you can't easily extract the MP3's back out of them (AFAIK)
This is actually a fairly trivial task, and nearly all of the third-party file management utilities for the Rio support doing so.
Nonetheless, I somehow doubt that people are buying $150 worth of Rio to transport 32M of lossily-compressed contraband. 8" floppy would be more convenient for MP3 piracy.
It should be only refered to as GNU/music because you developed the idea while Linux was in close proximity and Linux is really only here because of the GNU toolset.