In what's called the latest try at finding peaceful coexistence between the music business and the Internet, BMG label Arista has an experiment coming. They will issue a new CD from R&B singer Anthony Hamilton, Comin' From Where I'm From, which is designed to play differently on a computer than stereos, letting users copy all the songs onto the computer and most portable devices, and with nothing to stop multiple copying of the three CDs the software lets the buyer make – though a future version will address that problem, BMG said September 23.
"I think there is a market where the virtual world and the physical world can peacefully coexist," Arista senior vice president Jordan Katz told the Washington Post, announcing a move likely to be watched by music companies and file swapping programs alike.
"As long as there is a physical product, and there will be for a very long time, I think it's the right thing to make sure we protect artists' rights," Katz continued, "and at the same time be very, very conscious of what the general public and consumers want out of music."
The program allows the buyer to copy the Hamilton songs onto all portable devices but Apple's iPod, and also has an option to let the buyer copy the music into an e-mail, where the material has a ten-day life before expiring by programming.
"Each of the five major music companies -- Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI and BMG -- has experimented with various forms of copy protection on their CDs, and released some discs here and in Europe in recent years," the Post said. "But technology so far has mainly focused on keeping the music on the disc, as opposed to managing it in such a way that tries to protect copyright while giving the consumer some flexibility with the music."
And, the paper continued, the music business has been under fire for trying to solve the problem more by subpoena and litigation rather than offering consumers "workable alternatives" to peer-to-peer file swapping over Kazaa, Grokster, Morpheus, and other such networks.
