Saturday, September
25, 1999 Published at 06:44 GMT 07:44 UK
Sci/Tech
It's
only MP3 but I like it |
 |
| The
new player is matchbox-sized and can have any kind of
cover |
Former
Rolling Stone Bill Wyman has become the first major artist to
release an album on his own personalised digital MP3 player.
The
matchbox-sized device with no moving parts is one of the smallest
of its kind in the world and features encryption software
designed in the UK to prevent piracy.
 |
| Lee:Seismic
effect |
The
player costs £50 plus VAT, with the album cover on its front
and the actual music, claimed to be in better-than-CD quality,
contained on a removable chip inside known as a Multi Media
Card (MMC), similar to the SIM cards in mobile phones.
Bill
Wyman has chosen to release a Special Edition album of unreleased
material and live performances of his Rhythm Kings supergroup
featuring Eric Clapton, Georgie Fame, Gary Booker and Peter
Frampton.
The
player, due to be promoted from 1 October, is expected to
become a collectors' item but can be used for other MMC albums
or with blank MMCs for users to record their own MP3 music
choices.
Dazed
and confused
"Up
to now it's been hard to see how we could release our music
globally in the new format and at the same time protect ourselves
from the piracy problem," said the ex-Stone.
"The
Bill Wyman MP3 Player totally solves this problem, I'm very
excited about this - in fact my mind is reeling from the possibilities."
The
player and concept have been developed by London-based MP3
UK Ltd, whose founder and CEO Grenville Lee described the
launch as "a seismic event for the record industry".
An
MP3 Multi Media Card Reader/Writer is also available for £50
to enable any musician to produce files for MMC albums with
an inbuilt copyrighting system.
Anyone
could download the music from an artist's site but a unique
serial number is needed to unlock it. Musicians can get real-time
online reports on album sales and royalty payments due.
Grenville
Lee expects other major artists to release material on the
MP3 players with album-cover wraparounds in the near future
and believes it can become a Swatch-style fashion accessory
that could even be worn like an earring.
The
Wyman announcement comes in the same week that Pete Townshend
of The Who made his latest album, Pete Townshend Live, free
to download until 27 September from the Musicmaker.com Website.
And
David Bowie fans were able to buy and download his latest
album "hours..." from the Web weeks before it goes on sale
in the shops.
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