One I missed earlier, this on IBM's digital music on Internet represents an important driver for highspeed bandwidth:
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THURSDAY NOVEMBER 26 1998 Services
INTERNET: IBM to test digital music delivery
By Alice Rawsthorn
IBM, International Business Machines, the world's biggest computer company, has reached agreement with Sony, Warner, EMI, Universal and other US record companies to participate in a digital music distribution system, known as the Madison Project,
The agreement is a watershed for the music industry, which regards delivering digital recordings directly to consumers' computers via the internet and other digital networks as both a threat and an opportunity.
Consumers can already download unauthorised digital recordings from thousands of pirate internet sites. Record companies are anxious to start legal digital distribution, which will enable them to increase profits by bypassing retailers and cutting manufacturing costs.
However, they have been wary of doing so until they were convinced that technical and legal safeguards were in place.
IBM, like other computer companies, is anxious to exploit the market for digital music distribution technology. It has invested $20m in developing the Madison Project which, it says, is a secure system for record companies to deliver digital recordings to consumers. It will also monitor any internet music sales, whether by digital distribution or conventional mail order purchases.
For months, IBM has been in secret negotiations with US record companies to secure their involvement in a Madison Project test, scheduled to start next year. IBM declined to comment, but it is understood that last week it signed an agreement with all the big US record labels not only to participate in the trial but to make a financial contribution to it.
The negotiations with IBM have caused some discord within the music industry.
Universal, part of Seagram, the Canadian group that is expanding its music interests with an $11bn bid for PolyGram of the Netherlands, is understood to have discussed developing its own technology with AT&T, the US telecoms group.
AT&T is marketing its A2B music distribution system against IBM's.
Recent research suggests the internet could account for a third of all US record sales - worth $12bn last year - in 10 years' time.
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