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To: Blazejay who wrote (2685)	4/15/1999 6:20:00 PM
From: neverenough	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5843

Critics Question Microsoft Audio Format (04/14/99, 7:49 p.m. ET) By Malcolm Maclachlan, TechWeb LOS ANGELES -- Microsoft unveiled its bid to dominate yet another market late Tuesday, but critics and competitors said the advantages that helped Microsoft win in other arenas won't help its online-music foray. The company's new software format, MS Audio 4.0, is intended to set the standard for Internet-music downloads. Announced here at Spring Internet World 99, the format lets users pull songs off the Internet and play them on their computers. The format claims two major advantages over the current dominant format, MP3. First, Microsoft executives said, it provides better sound quality at about half the file size. This is important, since a single digitized song can take up several megabytes of disk space. Secondly, the software is designed to prevent unrestricted copying of songs. MP3 has no such protection, which is one reason the recording industry has generally opposed the format. But when it comes to music, Microsoft is an outsider. The medium found its way into the headlines through a bottom-up effort among developers and fans who traded MP3 files. MP3 is an open format, which no one company controls. Michael Robertson, CEO of MP3.com, a leading commercial MP3 distributor, said that his company is technology-agnostic, despite its name. If consumers want songs in the MS Audio format, MP3.com will provide them. However, Robertson said, the very thing that makes MS Audio bad for consumers, its proprietary nature, will also turn off record companies. Labels have shown themselves reluctant to adopt a standard that would make them beholden to any one software company, he said. "The record labels don't want anything to do with Microsoft," Robertson said. "This says to me that they are more worried about Microsoft than they are about MP3 piracy." Microsoft also faces competition from other major software players, said Jeff Green, senior director of international and new-business development for the Country Music Association. Two other copyright-protected formats, Liquid Audio and AT&T's a2b Music, have been courting record labels over a year, he said, but have landed only a few trial releases from the majors. Both, Green said, are now trying more to emulate the MP3 approach by signing up more obscure acts. For example, Green said, both companies have made trips to Nashville, Tenn., in the past year to try to convince some of the city's estimated 10,000 unsigned songwriters to release music on their formats. The big challenge all of these formats face is the Madison Project, a joint venture between IBM and the five biggest record companies to develop a safe digital-music download format. Even with actual trials of the technology finally beginning now, Green said, the existence of Madison will make it difficult for would-be competitors. techweb.com