New MP3s No One Wants

from the yes,-let's-make-a-technology-that's-less-useful dept

The folks at Thomson, who control the MP3 standard are apparently working on an update to MP3 that will include copy protection. This seems pretty pointless, though, it's pitched as a "best of both worlds" solution. Best of both worlds? To whom? Perhaps to the recording industry, because they get copy protection technology to go along with the MP3 brand name - but it's a worst of both worlds for most people. They understand what copy protection is. All this would really do would be to create yet another music format with more copy protection consumers don't want. Building technologies that actively hinder what people want is not the way to build a sustainable business. This new "MP3" technology isn't actually MP3 technology at all. It's not backward compatible. No current music players would support it. It would just add to the growing list of incompatible formats that are making the digital music world a mess, while encouraging more people to switch to open standards like Ogg Vorbis.

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