January 25, 2005
Sour notes jar hopes for cellphone music transfers
A dozen or so ventures in Europe and the United States are experimenting with ways to download high-quality audio files over cellular networks to the world's more than 2 billion mobile phones, reports the IHT.
"But the business is stalled in a land-grab of commercial interests, with cellphone carriers, handset makers, musicians, record labels and other copyright holders fighting over control of the customer and how big their piece of the mobile music pie should be.
Each company is trying a different approach, unsure about which will generate the most revenue for the most number of players. Some use a separate service to organize the music selection. Others are cutting out the middleman and turning into music retailers themselves. Motorola, meanwhile, is planning to offer a phone with iTunes software this spring, essentially cutting out the cellphone carrier.
Technology is not considered a hurdle, for a change; the mobile phone makers say it takes few additional electronic components to add stereo sound to a phone, and the speed of current networks is adequate to move compressed music files over the airwaves quickly without frustrating the end user."
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