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| 27 January 2010
During the MIDEM music industry trade fair in Cannes this week, a new ground breaking music file format was unveiled named MusicDNA. Brought to us by the same inventor has the MP3 Dagfinn Bach and his company BACH Technology.
The new format aims to fight piracy by offering more content to music fans such as - lyrics, news updates, tour dates and social network information - by embedding the content along with the track. MusicDNA will also be backwards compatible with MP3, so you can still still play music from MDNA on MP3 players including an iPod. Apple released a product with a similar concept (music with data) recently called iTunes LP, however BACH claims their new format will offer more content with the advantage of automatic updates.
After purchasing and downloading the MDNA, the user is able to receive updates from the artists, labels or retailers as soon as they connect online. Illegal purchases will only receive a static file and not the updates.
“What we are bringing back to the end user is the entire emotional experience of music,” he said. “We think it got lost in the transition to the digital era. We think a beautiful piece of audio has been reduced to a number code. We want to enrich it again.” BACH Chief Executive Stefan Kohlmeyer told Reuters.
This train of thought is a huge leap for the music industry. The format is claiming to give users a total experience with the artists and their music - they can listen to a track, sing along with the lyrics and then give feedback over a social media network. Such technology will give the industry greater insight into customer behaviour, it will also allow promotional material to be pushed to the users and that material will be much more accountable. One thing you cannot pirate, is genuine experience. Although i would like more info on the audio quality, i wanted to see a format that encourages the best possible sound.
Record labels such as Tommy Boy have already signed up, so have some digital service providers and distributors R2G (China), Rebeat Digital (German), and Britain's People Music Store. Although none of the worlds leading labels have committed to the format, they have shown interest says Kohlmeyer.
I would say that the majors will need to see how commercially viable the format can be before pen goes to paper. However, without total industry backing this bird might not fly.
BACH plans to Beta test the format early 2010 with a commercial release by mid year. They will release the MusicDNA player via their website for free. http://www.musicdna.com/.
