Record Industry to Announce Digital-Music Initiative
New York, Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- The world's five largest recorded music companies plan to unveil a joint initiative today to set standards for distribution of digital music over the Internet.
Representatives from BMG Entertainment, EMI Recorded Music, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group are expected to reveal a new format for downloading music from the World Wide Web onto digital-recording devices that protects artists' rights, analysts said. The news will be announced at a New York media conference that will be broadcast live on the Internet.
Burgeoning digital-music technology such as the so-called MP3 format is a threat to the record industry, allowing consumers to reproduce and distribute CD-quality music for free. A recent spate of piracy prompted by the technology served as a wake-up call to the music industry, which must sort out its online role, analysts said.
''The Internet is here to stay,'' said Mark Hardie, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. ''The industry needs to recognize that going forward, they need other products -- interactive formats, music services and a variety of different packaging of music content.''
In October, the Recording Industry Association of America sued Diamond Multimedia Systems Inc. for selling the Rio, an Internet device that lets users download music off the Internet in MP3 format. Diamond Multimedia has since counter-sued.
''If the record industry is going to sell music in next millennium, they are going to have to develop new systems,'' said David Charles, spokesman for Chicago-based Audiodiner.com, which developed an online-distribution network that allows for down-loading music singles from the Web, with royalties paid to artists.
A spokeswoman for the recording industry association declined to provide specifics on today's announcement.
Industry officials scheduled to attend include Strauss Zelnick, president and chief executive of Bertelsmann AG's BMG Entertainment; Ken Berry, president of EMI Recorded Music, a unit of EMI Group Plc; Thomas Mottola, chairman and chief executive of Sony Corp.'s Sony Music; Doug Morris, chairman and chief executive of Seagram Co.'s Universal Music; and Bob Daly and Terry Semel, co-chief executives of Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. and Warner Music Group.
EMI's shares rose 1.25 pence to 363.75p. |
