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Summary of MP3 Summit - Day 2
http://stations.mp3s.com/stations/204/summit_news.html#day2

"To Subscribe or Not to Subscribe?"

That is the question of the digital music industry. CEOs Michael Robertson of MP3.com, Dennis Mudd of MusicMatch and Gene Hoffman of eMusic CEO discussed their respective subscription services in a panel moderated by Brad King of Wired.com.

With MusicMatch one of the last independent services, Mudd spoke optimistically about his company's focus on perfecting personalization features. King questioned Hoffman and Robertson about the future of their services, given their pairing with a Vivendi-Universal. Hoffman noted that eMusic has 20,000 paying subscribers and their numbers continues to increase each quarter.

Robertson spoke optimistically about the future of subscription music services, comparing the slow growth rate of subscription to the gradual success of AOL. The panelists also debated the pros and cons of charging on a per song basis as opposed to a flat fee.


Copyright Still the Weapon of Choice?
Friday's keynote speaker, Bill Patry, former copyright counsel to House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, spoke about "Copyright as a Weapon to Hang On to Outdated Business Models". He argued that the 19th century model of copyright law that the US legal system follows hasn't lived up to its role in the 20th and now 21st centuries.

Patry questioned the benefit of everyone trying to get as much money as they could via performances of copyrighted materials from a societal standpoint. At the end of his presentation, Patry challenged Summit attendees to be the individuals to work out the current Internet copyright issues because they represented the people who dealt with those issues on a day-to-day basis.



Is It Time to Cut the Cord Yet?


Discussing the infrastructure for wireless music delivery were Rees Johnson, vice president of product marketing at Metricom; Brad Kirn, business development manager/corporate research and development at Qualcomm; and John Villasenor, professor/vice chair of UCLA's Electrical Engineering Department.

While both Kirn and Johnson spoke optimistically about the constantly improving wireless infrastructure, Villasenor was the biggest skeptic. Because of the complexities involved with music and video delivery, Villasenor questioned any near-future capabilities.

Kirn, naturally, rebutted many of Villasenor's statements, claiming that wireless technology is constantly being driven by new devices and applications, and that the industry is evolving more rapidly than consumers think. Regarding the status of Internet technology, Kirn said, "We're still in the DOS version of the web, but we're slowly moving into the Windows version."

Rees Johnson concentrated on Metricom's continuous surveying and testing methods that contribute to Ricochet's strategy for wireless connectivity. Relaying real-life consumer experiences, Johnson described some of the technological hurdles that still face the service.


Anyone Getting Rich Off Rich Audio?



Well, not really, but some firms will cash in eventually. The panelists at the "Rich Audio" discussion hope to be among them.

And they plan to do it by offering value-added features that will not only benefit consumers and empower artists, but will make themselves a lot of money as well.

"Winamp is probably the least-rich audio player available but it's the one most people use. And Napster is basically a search box but everyone used it," said moderator Christian Pirkner of MoodLogic. "So why should anyone pay to use rich audio?'

A lively debate on that question ensued. Max Wells, whose company Cantametrix has developed a "fingerprinting" technology that can identify a given audio file and tell who originally purchased it, has a good reason: "There are now 500 billion audio files throughout the world, playable on 200 million PCs."

He said by giving consumers reasons to access rich content within those files -- such as text lyrics, concert footage, ticket-purchasing links and access to fan clubs -- they'll be willing to pay for it. Whoever figures out the best standard for embedding those billions of files and the billions more to come will have a lot to sing about, the panelists concluded.

The big five record labels are interested in the up-and-coming technologies but, as one panelist noted, "they need to learn how to walk before they can run."


Ware It's At with Wireless Products - Day 2
This year's Summit saw some exciting new products being displayed. In addition to having their own exhibition booths at the MP3 Summit, many companies were able to demo their wares at a presentation called "Ware It's At: Cutting-Edge music applications and devices."

Keith McMillen, president and CEO of Octiv, showed software that greatly improves MP3 quality and consistency through the use of automatic real-time normalization and spectral balancing. This software can be embedded in portable MP3 players, car stereos and home entertainment systems.

The new iRock! portable MP3 player line was introduced by Randy Cavaiani, VP of marketing and sales for First International Digital. The iRock! line is the first to support mp3i technology, which bundles rich media like lyrics and pictures into standard MP3 files. The first two iRock! players that will be available soon to consumers will be the 620 and 680 (same as the 620 but with a FM tuner).

Other presenters included Roxio, a spin-off of Adaptec that specializes in CD-burning software; and DigMedia, a software and services company focusing on device-based subscription services. Microsoft gave a preview of Windows XP and the new Windows Media Player. The last two presenters were yourmobile.com, a company that specializes in personalized cell phone ring tones and Musicphone, a phone service that allows users to call up and request various information about their favorite artists via voice recognition.



What's Fueling Dueling Formats?


Analogies flowed like, uh, analogies in the panel about all the competing music-compression technologies in the marketplace. The opening slide likened consumers' confusion over today's music technology to a question Kelly Bundy her dad, Al Bundy, on TV's "Married...with Children." After he asked her what a record cost these days, Kelly replied, "What's a record?"

Moderator Jim Griffin of Cherry Lane Digital and Evolab invoked an old African saying, "When the elephants fight, the grass suffers," referring to the quest to be the dominant codec provide being waged by firms such as Thomson Multimedia and Dolby Labs, both of whom also were represented on the panel.

Companies utilizing formats such as MP3 may be in for more suffering, said attorney Ron Gertz, if the original patent holders of those formats ask for increasing royalties in the future. Consumers probably won't be affected but may end up confused because of all the litigating. In fact, "Litigation as a business tool is one way companies can try to tip the balance to boost revenues and stay in the game," said Brad Brunell of Microsoft.

The real stars of the MP3 Summit were all the flashy new devices. On the event's second day, manufacturers continued to showcase their wares in the demonstration area, ranging from Qualcomm and Toshiba to DigMedia, PhatNoise and SSI America.

Philips offered a sneak peak into their future plans, including smaller, enhanced new versions of their eXpanium MP3/CD player, an 8cm MP3/CD player and a new line of affordable, upgradeable MP3/CD boom boxes. RCA was well-represented with their line of MP3 products.

Visteon's MACH MP3 Jukebox, powered by PhatNoise, offers 500 hours of music in a cartridge about the size of a thick Pop-Tart. Another favorite was the Treo digital music jukebox. The lightest, smallest hard-drive player we've seen yet, it looked and sounded great.

MP3.com's Developers Network and Premium Listener application occupied booths for demonstration purposes, and a special Listening Station offered attendees hands-on testing of some of the top MP3 players on the market today.