MP3 Player Makers Expedite Alliance With Online Content Providers
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
By Kim Won-suk
In line with trends of charging fees for downloading music, MP3 player makers are expediting strategic alliances with leading online content providers. These MP3 player firms are competitively installing digital rights management solutions of content providers in their MP3 gadgets.
MP3 players equipped with digital rights management solution can neither play back free music nor transmit free music files to other appliances.
Industry sources said on February 9 that MP3 player maker Digital Way is in talks with content provider Soribada for partnership in the wake of alliance between Samsung Electronics and Napster. Other MP3 player firms such as Reigncom and Cowon System are seeking to build partnership relations with content providers.
Seeing that adoption of digital rights management solution will become a key to exploring overseas markets where pay music service prevails, MP3 player firms are expediting its installation, in particular.
Reigncom is in talks with big name music publishers to enter contracts of licensing music sources, while offering charged music streaming and down loading service beginning in April this year via its subsidiary Urion.
The company also plans to roll out MP3 players installed with 'Janus', the next-generation digital rights management solution of Microsoft, set to be unveiled in June. "For use of legal digital music sources, the company will initially adopt Microsoft's digital rights management solution," said a manager at Reigncom.
Digital Way is poised to change landscape of the domestic MP3 player market by entering a partnership contract with Soribada, the largest online music service provider at home. "The business model of allowing users to download music from Soribada and play back in Digital Way's MP3 player will stir a substantial ripple effect in the market," said an officer at the company.
Cowon System intends to augment lineup of MP3 players that can support digital rights management solutions, when distribution of pay content turns to be more active.
