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To: Ausdauer who wrote (5489)	4/20/1999 1:01:00 AM
From: Ron C	Respond to of 60323

Aus and Thread: MP3 and serious guns. News IBM-Sony Align For Online Music Platform (04/16/99, 6:18 p.m. ET) By Mo Krochmal, TechWeb IBM and Sony on Thursday became the latest technology companies to sing out on the digital downloading of music. In a Los Angeles press conference, IBM and Sony said they will collaborate to make Sony's copyright protection technologies interoperable with IBM's electronic music management system, a system for the controlled sale and downloading of music. Sony will configure an upcoming line of digital devices to play song files encoded using the IBM technology. They are entering the field a bit early, as the music industry is constructing its own standardized system for digitally downloading music, expected to be ready by the fourth quarter of the year, said Ken Cassar, an analyst with Jupiter Communications in New York. "I wonder if this is an attempt to influence the standard as their own," Cassar said. "If their products are out there, it may be more likely that the product will look like their own." Earlier this week, IBM joined Real Networks to announce an agreement to develop a new application that will allow users to download high-quality audio and video transmissions over the Internet and store them as files on their personal computers. Also, Real Networks announced that it would be buying Xing Technology, a company that develops softwarefor the MP3 format. And finally, Microsoft introduced Windows Media Technology 4.0, software that includes a player for consumers and tools to help musicians and providers of music encode their works and control their distribution over the Internet. All are efforts to mitigate the perceived damage being done to the industry by the illegal copying of music into MP3 files. MP3 is an essentially free technology that allows users to make digital copies of music that compresses into small files but produces near-CD quality sound. The tech giants join Liquid Audio and AT&T's a2b Music in producing technologies to allow copyright protection over the digital downloading of music. Cassar said the industry standard to be released in December will eventually drive the market, including the MP3 format. "MP3 will have to evolve to it in the long run," Cassar said. The record industry, a $13 billion business in the U.S., Cassar said, is reeling from the popularity of MP3. "They are committing significant resources," Cassar said. "I can't help but believe the dollars are going to win out." Ron C.