"Worldwide portable digital music player unit shipments will grow from 2.4 million in 2000 to over 9 million in 2005". That from a report released yesterday by Cahners In-Stat showing that the digital music player industry will triple its market foothold over the next four years.
Many people, especially on the job, use their computer to stand in for their stereo system these days. To take the ability to play a CD on a computer away is an act that violates consumer expectations of the product. A CD that will not function in a PC will only frustrate and anger consumers and many will simply choose to avoid them.
When the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) proposed SoundExchange, a new agency they set up to collect royalty fees for digital broadcasts under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), artists were up in arms. They had good reason, as the original plan had the artist's record label as the conduit to disperse funds. The artist's, through two trade unions, fought back and an agreement was finally worked out.
The 128MB Pocket Concert is an excellent portable MP3 player, but now a casualty of Intel's decision to close its entire consumer division. The good news is bargain prices are coming for Christmas as Intel unloads a whole lot of back stock.
The e.Digital MXP 100 comes with a choice of 340MB, 512MB, and 1GB MicroDrives and is only about 25% larger than a Rio 500 flash portable. It's coolest feature, though, is its VoiceNav feature which allows you to change tracks and play songs using voice commands.
Source: The Washington Post
LOS ANGELES –– Concerned that its rivals may get a bigger audience, the head of Napster hopes to press play for the embattled song-swapping service sometime next year.
Konrad Hilbers told technology industry compatriots at the Webnoize 2001 conference Monday that Napster still needs to license more major record label music before the business is ready to go online, "probably in the first quarter of next year."
MP3 Newswire has posted The RIAA's open letter demanding an appology for an article that appeared in Billboard titled "RIAA Criticized Over Effort to Change Anti-Terrorism Bill." One of RIAA's complaints is that the Billboard reporter didn't actually talk to RIAA as the reason for the story's inaccuracy.
Apple today announced the iPod, a 5GB MP3 jukebox portable. Selling for $399, the player's most interesting feature is the fact it uses FireWire for file transfers between the computer and the unit. Faster than the USB connection standard on most MP3 portables now, Apple claims an entire CD can be transferred in 10 seconds and 1,000 song files in 10 minutes. The article includes a photo of the iPod."
Presently, KaZaa is the second most downloaded Napster clone (first is its FastTrack-powered brethren Morpheus). Now it hopes to bring more users into the fold with the alpha release of it the long waited Linux client, KaZaA Media Shell or kza.
Source: CNet News
LOS ANGELES--MusicNet on Tuesday named MTV executive Alan McGlade to head the online music service at a time when both the venture and rival service Pressplay have come under increased scrutiny by government antitrust regulators.
