Our sister publication, Multimedia Futures looks at an interesting adjunct to JamTV’s new service is an agreement between EMI Publishing and Cerberus Central Ltd for the digital distribution of over a million songs.
The contract covers Cerberus’ new Internet Audio Server, its’ Virtual Pressing Plant, and the deal clears many of the rights issues that have plagued Internet distribution. EMI is the world’s largest music publisher, and this deal could see about 20% of the world’s music go online, over 1.5 million songs. Cerberus, established in 1994, claims to be the largest European Internet software developer, with a global network of offices. It was the first company to gain a music industry license to sell audio online via its Cerberus Digital Jukebox, which contains over 100,000 songs currently. With Internet servers installed in six continents, CDJ is the largest audio archive of independent record labels and musicians. VPP uses Coded Bitstream Reliant (CBR), an online format designed originally for the Digital Jukebox. Cerberus says that every record label, publisher, distributor and artist can now feel confident about selling their songs and music through the Internet. VPP enables the music industry to bridge a troublesome gap between copyright ownership, Internet and satellite communications. It is approved by a large clutch of music publishers and Internet bodies. Piracy on the Internet is a growing, serious problem. Thousands of songs from every major publisher are available on- line, and the Virtual Pressing Plant ‘s CBR format is designed to protect integrity on-line. Designed to enable the safe distribution of audio via the Internet, Cable TV, ISDN, satellite and portable telephone, it is targeted primarily at bars and clubs, instore CD manufacturing and CD-ROM manfacturing with compression, editing and online marketing features. It includes several extra features for security and authentication, including: Cercure ATM banking approved credit card clearance; CD quality audio compression and playback software.
