Q: Hi Peter
I own a large number of SunnComm shares and believe strongly in the concept and purpose behind SunnComm´s technology. My concern, though, is that for every article I read about protecting CD´s and DVD´s, I seem to find ten that discuss new music download venues and proprietors. How will CD manufacturers (and thereby SunnComm) differentiate and add value to CD´s to improve revenues? (special inserts, free concert tickets, bonus tracks, bonus music videos, etc.) Do you believe these added value features will sell more CD´s? When will you begin to diversify into the DVD arena and what other areas to do see expanding the bottom line? Are you able to or do you intend to copy protect music downloads (other than with Immediatek...)? This seems to be the real future. How will we be in it? Thanks.
Paul (11/10/2003 5:22:07 PM)
A: Paul, you´re going to have to pay the excess question tax. (-: Briefly, let me try to answer some of your questions.
It may be true that music downloading may be the future, but remember that less than half of the households in the US have computers. While we´re reading much about electronic music distribution, most people still buy their music on compact discs and we expect that CDs will be the music medium of choice for at least the next 5 years.
Regarding value-added features, SunnComm was the one of the first companies in the world to incorporate a second session (called a Yellow Book session) on a CD. Over the next year, you should see features added to MediaMax CDs that will include major artist-related give-aways, special videos, bonus tracks, liner notes and thoughts penned by the artist, show schedules, and much more. Without exception, the record companies with whom we currently work, both large and independent, recognize that real additional value added to their CD releases will create both greater demand and greater customer satisfaction.
SunnComm plans to begin beta testing its MediaMax DVD Management technology in the first quarter of 2004. DVDs are showing incredible growth and should eventually eclipse CDs in popularity.
SunnComm has proprietary technology that is over interest to companies who sell music downloads to online customers. It´s called SecureBurn and will signficantly reduce the ability of a customer to burn a copy from a copy.
That´s it for now. Thanks for writing, Paul.
Best regards,
Peter
