Morphing MP3 Technology Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

So you've joined the MP3 revolution. You've downloaded the player software, bookmarked the all-encompassing MP3.com site, searched for that Fatboy Slim track you don't want to pay for, and you're eyeing that Diamond Rio portable player. Well, don't bet the farm just yet: MP3 may be all the rage right now, but it won't be around long. |

Small files, fast downloads, infinite digital copies to send to friends, superior audio quality. What's not to like? Well, it depends on whom you ask. Record labels are scared of losing money to pirates, competing technology companies fear they won't be included in the future if MP3 takes off, and pundits like Broadcast.com president Mark Cuban think MP3 can't keep up with advances that will be made in the computer industry in the next few years.

The biggest reason to question MP3's future: It's merely a compression technology, not a "commerce solution." With MP3, any modestly industrious computer owner can get music online that would cost money at the local record store. And it's possible to share that music with as many people as you like. Post a song on a Web site, and watch 10,000 people download it in a day. That's what scares the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) more than anything. And that's why so many companies are testing other technologies: so they can either monitor or control who listens to their music files, how often, etc.

Thus we have Microsoft announcing its own MP3-killer called MSAudio 4.0, the RIAA announcing the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), Liquid Audio announcing the Genuine Music Coalition and Standard, and IBM and the five major record labels (BMG, EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner) announcing a major trial Internet-based sales and distribution model called the Electronic Music Management System (EMMS) -- code named the Madison Project -- to begin this spring in San Diego. Even if these systems do accommodate MP3 somehow, they'll also throw in controls like watermarking or encryption, which means that your MP3 files won't be so free.

As it stands today, no one knows how to sell downloadable music online yet; they just know that today's MP3 isn't necessarily part of the solution. "SDMI is intended to be an overarching response ... so music can be labeled at the source -- CD, DVD, computer file -- with codes that would basically identify the recording and what usage rights come with it," says Cary Sherman, senior executive VP and general counsel at RIAA. "That information stays with the music, regardless of whether it's passed through a telephone network or the Internet or a set-top box. And no matter where it winds up -- Rio, recordable DVD machine or on a PC -- that device would be able to read those codes and know what can be done with that music."

Representatives behind the EMMS project, backed by music bigwigs, also stress the importance of controls: "Our system allows the artist, as well as the music label, to choose whatever compression -- MP3 or Liquid Audio or anybody else -- that they want to use," says Rick Selvage, general manager of IBM's global media and entertainment industry. "How that gets configured -- can they record it, listen to it one time, record it one time or multiple times -- are all usage issues that they will test as part of the marketing objective."

Even Dreamworks (www.dreamworksrec.com), which has embraced MP3 (and also posts WAV and RealPlayer songs), is testing the waters while company officials admit that MP3 may not be the final solution. "We're just waiting for the industry to decide what the standard is and then we'll go with the standard," says Adam Somers, head of Multimedia at Dreamworks Records. "MP3, in my mind, only figures into the promotional model until it can be delivered securely." Visitors to the Dreamworks site can currently download music by Elliott Smith or Henry Rollins, for example, and choose which of the three formats they want to use. But the company also experimented with Liquid Audio last December.

Right now, it's the independent artists who currently carry the free-spirited MP3 torch. And with all these audio download alternatives likely to pop up soon, they'll be the only ones to stick with MP3 (or MP4 or MP5) in the future. In the end, MP3 will most likely be remembered as the scandalous technology that got the music industry to wake up and take the Internet seriously. So enjoy it while you can.

This is the first in a series of weekly columns focusing on how the Internet is changing music.

JAMES OLIVER CURY(March 23, 1999)