Two days after being acquired by RealNetworks Inc, Xing Technology Corp has announced a retail distribution deal with Mixman Technologies Inc for Xing’s AudioCatalyst MP3 CD-ripper. Xing says AudioCatalyst, which has until now only been available for download, will be the first of its type to be sold through retail outlets. The package contains the AudioGrabber ripper, which lets users ‘rip’ music from CDs and save them digitally as MP3, for easy distribution. Although Xing’s intentions are honorable (it says the software will help new musicians circulate their work) it is likely that more users than not will use the software for piracy purposes. MP3 does not have a copyright protection facility.
While in the US, technology bigwigs like Microsoft and IBM are seeking record industry approval for their respective potential ‘MP3-killers’, in Europe the industry is taking a more aggressive approach. Thomas Stein, president of Germany’s Phonographic Industry Association, told a news conference Wednesday that it was working on technology to seek out MP3 pirates on the internet. He said the German music industry lost $11m in 1998 as a result of internet piracy, double that of the previous year. Details of how the association proposes to counter such a huge black market remain unclear, but it is believed web-crawling technology could be used to locate illegal copiers.
