3. Operaciones efectuadas con REFIPRES, consideradas en Precios de Transferencia
3.6 Ingresos gravables y determinación de ISR
To listen to compressed music from the Internet or ripped from a CD on a PC a software player has to be installed. Over 150 players and 70 rippers can be downloaded from the internet, for example from the site download.cnet.com, most on a free or shareware basis. The most popular players are Winamp and Sonique, both are freeware and approximately 2 MB in size (smaller than a MP3 track). Sonique is generally considered to produce better quality sound than Winamp but many users prefer the Winamp interface. The players offer very similar functionality playing MP3, CDA, WAV and other audio formats. Some players such as Liquid Player have territorial restrictions.
As the demand from the music industry for secure content has grown a new group of software players has been developed. The most significant is likely to be Microsoft with its Windows Media Player 7 but there are others such as the Liquidaudio player.
These players offer DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology and are built for AAC or WMA formats whilst retaining capabilities for CDA, MP3 and WAV.
Winamp ( www.winamp.com)
Developed by Nullsoft, Winamp is the most popular software MP3 player. In addition to MP3, it supports other music formats as standard or through plugins. The latest version (2.65) is a 2.06 MB download for Windows 95 / 98 / NT. The interface is easy to use featuring four self-docking windows, playlist editor, equalizer and a minibrowser. Over 16,000 “skins” are available for download allowing customisation of the interface’s appearance. There are a number of plugins for visualisations that synchronise with the music, in addition the minibrowser enables users to search online for tracks.
Figure 60: Winamp interface
Source: Winamp
Sonique ( www.sonique.com)
Team Sonique, part of the Lycos group, primarily developed Sonique to decode MP3 format audio files under the Windows OS, but the 2 MB application also plays WMA, WAV and CDA. Sonique is the second most popular software MP3 player; it’s website claims 10,000 daily downloads. The windowless interface features CD player type controls and includes shuttle control, a 20 band graphic equalizer, playlist editor, and
File size Application Version MB
Winamp 2.65 2.0
Sonique 1.63 2.0
Windows Media Player 7 9.0
Liquid player 5 5.0
Musicmatch 5.1 7.0
Cowon Jet-Audio 4.7 8.0
Software players
Source: Lehman Brothers Research
visualizations. The player automatically notifies users when updates become available, allows online searching for MP3’s and gives access to the Sonique music distribution site. In the near future Sonique will incorporate Intertrust’s DRM system, e-commerce capability and online media guides.
Windows Media Player ( www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/)
Version 7 of the Microsoft Windows Media Player was launched in July 2000 as freeware for all the current Windows operating systems. At 9.3 MB it is a significantly larger application than either Winamp or Sonique but it has video as well as audio capability. The application supports DRM and Windows Media Audio format as well as MP3, WAV and CDA. Windows Media Player allows efficient management of all the media stored on a user’s PC, automatically labelling tracks according to Album, Artist, Title or Label. Media Player 7 is bundled with Windows Millennium Edition (the upgrade to windows 98), in this way it will have automatic presence with new and upgrading PC users. WMP 7 had 2.5 million downloads from download.cnet.com in the first 3 months of release, indicating this player’s strong consumer appeal.
Figure 61: Skins and visualisations for Windows Media Player 7
Source: Microsoft
Liquidplayer (www.liquidaudio.com)
Copy protected Liquid Audio files can only be played with the dedicated Liquidplayer.
The 5 MB application also plays CD, WAV and MP3 formats and has all the common features including skins, visualisations, etc. The player can burn to CD, has functions for previewing and purchasing music online and provides extras such as lyrics, art and notes about artists. The player may be an example of what is to come for digital music but until the availability of tracks in the format improves take up may be limited.
Other popular players include Music Match and Realjukebox, both of which encode and manage music collections. These are available in limited functionality freeware versions or more sophisticated commercial versions for approximately $30.
The market shares of various software players are featured in Figure X below: Winamp is still the undisputed leader in terms of popularity with over 13m downloads at the end of September 2000, however we expect Windows Media Player to start showing traction as a result of Windows Millenium launch. It will be interesting to observe whether there will a re-run of the Netscape-Explorer wars, because in effect Microsoft Sonique interface
Figure 62: Number of players downloaded since release (end of September 2000, ‘000)
Source: download.cnet.com
Streaming
When media is accessed over the Internet be it music, a news summary or a film trailer it can either be downloaded as a file and stored permanently or streamed and held temporarily on the PC as it is being consumed. The major difference is that downloaded media can be used many times and re-played as and when it is wanted as the file stays in the user’s possession. Streamed content, on the other hand, is consumed online as it is played and the content remains with the provider. In streamed audio the user listens to the file as it comes through the connection. The file is stored in a buffer as it is played, and the file stays in the owner’s server. We think streaming audio has more advantages from the content owner’s perspective as it allows for security of copyright;
as the file does not change owners, it cannot be copied or redistributed.
Because streamed media content is played as it is accessed, the quality is limited by the bandwidth of the connection, instead of the compression technique.
Buffering techniques are used to smooth out the data stream, holding a few seconds of data in a reserve. The less reliable the connection the larger the data buffer that has to be held. Downloads normally take longer than the actual playtime of the media but allow the quality to be much higher. Examples of streamed media include online radio and webcam broadcasts of events such as fashion shows, pop concerts and the Big Brother house. These web broadcasts have matured from the novelty-act days when small web-cam views of bus stops or fish tanks used to attract thousands of internet users, to new applications that can provide panoramic views and interactivity.
Realplayer has been the standard for streamed media for several years.
The usability of streaming is so far limited to its lack of portability, as the user cannot save music files to be carried on a portable MP3 player. However, with the arrival of wireless broadband, streams can be accessed from internet-enabled mobile phones. Some of the new mobile handset already have built-in MP3-players installed, such as the new Samsung phone. Bandwidth on mobiles will be the limiting factor for take-up of mobile streaming, so until 3G infrastructure is in place we do not expect this to be the killer application in online music.
13,415
6,067
2,430
1,022 695
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000
Winamp
2.65 Sonique1.63 Windows
Media
Player 7 Musicmatch Cowon Jet-Audio
Key Thoughts:
Downloading music from the internet requires reducing the size of compact disc music files.
Compression involves two stages: encoding and decoding.
There are several compression formats available and no clear standard has yet emerged.
MP3 is the most popular format, however it does not have any built-in security features. Other formats include Windows Media Audio and Real Audio.
To listen to music from the internet a software player needs to be installed, such as Winamp or Sonique.
Streaming means that the music file stays with the owner and music is listened to as it comes through the connection.European Internet Content/New Media Ian McEwen (44) 20 7260 2961
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