Stealing some thunder from Microsoft's anticipated digital audio announcement on Tuesday, RealNetworks, and IBM said Monday that they will coordinate on building a system for delivering secured music files over the Web.
Maria Cantwell, senior vice president of the consumer and electronic commerce division at RealNetworks, said that its player technology will be a plug-in for IBM's Electronic Music Management System and will allow IBM encryption to "flow through the player." So, if consumers want to order encrypted music files using EMMS, the Real Audio player will be available for that purpose, Cantwell said.
The security built into EMMS will include encryption and digital watermarking, as well as controls on the number of times consumers will be able to copy files.
"Each company will be able to make decisions on the limits and pricing," said Rick Selvage, general manager of global media for IBM. "Music labels will not offer much music at all to be downloaded until there is security they are comfortable with.
"We are in discussions with a wide range of consumer device companies for portables and set-tops that will have a compliant system to EMMS, and will work within the policies that record labels set."
In December, the Recording Industry Association of America organized a wide-ranging group of technology and music industry players to develop a secure format and system for delivering music over the Net. Dubbed the Secure Digital Music Initiative, the coalition includes AOL, AT&T, IBM, Lucent, Microsoft, Matsushita, RealNetworks, Sony, Toshiba, Liquid Audio and AT&T's a2b music, among others.
The SDMI format will be a competitor to MP3, an open audio format that compresses music files at near-CD-quality sound for easy distribution over the Internet. Users love its convenience -- files can be copied without restrictions -- but the RIAA says the technology encourages music piracy.
The RIAA plans to introduce the SDMI format in two stages, according to Cary Sherman, the organization's senior executive vice president. The specifications for portable players are due on 30 June, and the complete architecture is expected to be complete by the end of next March.
While all companies involved in SDMI are competing to have their technology endorsed as the official format, the RIAA will is expected to select only one system.
Neither IBM nor RealNetworks went as far as to say their integrated system will be the basis for SDMI, but the combined technologies appear to have most of the important components that the record labels have been looking for in a secure online delivery system.
"IBM has been working with five major record labels for almost three years to develop EMMS with specifications they were looking for the secure distribution of music," said Selvage. "That initiative happened to be compliant with SDMI, an open system with interoperability between technologies -- and it also allows the secure distribution of music in which copyrights will be protected."
"Clearly we are doing this with IBM because they have pushed the envelope with the labels on two key components -- rights clearinghouse and security," Cantwell said.
IBM is planning a trial run of the system in the San Diego area in June, using the broadband connection of RoadRunner, a high-speed cable modem Internet service backed by Time-Warner, Microsoft, and Compaq. The 1,000 testers will be able to download songs and burn the music onto recordable CDs playable on a regular stereo. The project has the backing of the Big Five: BMG, EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music, and Warner Music.
IBM is also developing a consumer music server that will stream audio to stereo components and PCs as part of its Home Director networking initative. The server will locally store a variety of audio formats including MP3 and Real Audio.
In related news, Microsoft is hosting a party at the House of Blues in Los Angeles on Tuesday, where the company will announce its delivery system for music online, including the MS Audio 4.0 format, which will be part of an upcoming Windows Media player release. The new compression format will create music files about half the size of MP3, also at near-CD quality. Another expected component of Microsoft's music online audio announcement will be a digital rights management system, whereby artists and labels can secure and track files as they travel about the Net.
