A new music distribution service to use OpenMG/ATRAC3

(2003.10.23)

	Service to start in spring 2004
Any Music's logo

Any Music Planning Inc. announced they would start music distribution service named “Any Music” in spring 2004. Member audio appliance manufacturers will come up with the products that support this service.

Mr. Fujio Noguchi, President of Any Music Planning

Any Music Planning was set up by Kenwood, Pioneer, Sharp, Sony and others to investigate the music distribution business. It is now making preparations to launch its business before the end of the year.

Any Music distributes music directly to home audio equipment via broadband Internet connection. It positions itself as a network service/common platform which provides the associated services. It uses OpenMG developed by Sony for copyright management technology and ATRAC3 for distribution codec.

When the company was established in January, it was targeting autumn 2003 for the launch of its business, but there were some some delays in coordinating the participating companies and the content holders. The service is now slated to kick off in spring 2004.

Any Music positions itself as “a platform to realize music distribution via broadband for home and consumer electronics”, while Any Music Planning (the operating company for the service) draws up plans for a common specification of home electronics hardware, protocol and interface. It will also be in charge of authentication, billing, customer management, and support. Equipment manufacturers will develop and sell associated hardware based on Any Music 's specifications.

As Any Music itself does not have a technology development division, it commissions companies with such capacity, and the manufacturers utilize the developed technology as a common platform.

The positioning of Any Music	Developed as a common platform for CE. It will be in partnership with Label Gate for distribution data.

Mr. Fujio Noguchi, President of Any Music Planning Inc. explained that the goal of the company is “to make network-music widely used while protecting the rights of content holders, to narrow the distance between users and music, and to provide a new way for enjoying it.”

The 9 companies participating in Any Music

Partly due to the fact that competing companies were gathered, he commented: “we have been trying to start Any Music for 3 years, but it has been extremely difficult”. However, compared to 3 years ago, the environment has changed with broadband becoming more and more widespread and making network distribution “a reality, and not a dream”, “we have finally reached the point where it is taking shape”, he said.

Other than the 4 core participating companies, there were originally 4 supporting companies, Onkyo, Denon, Victor, Yamaha, but now it seems that Marantz is also taking part. The 5 supporting companies plan to produce the associated equipment.

Label Gate's President, Mr. Manabu Kodo. He expressed his expectation for “an interesting culture which will spring from the gathering of record companies and audio manufacturers”	Mr. Tsuyoshi Takashiro, a hyper media creator commented music can be enjoyed any time with a dedicated service, and dedicated high quality hardware. Users' dreams may become true.”

Hardware supporting Any Music by various companies.

At the announcement stereo equipments supporting Any Music were exhibited by Aiwa, Kenwood, Sharp, Sony, and Pioneer. They are models that are scheduled for commercialization, and they are planned to be on the market when the service kicks off in spring 2004.

These equipments are all-in-one type component stereo systems with built-in HDD and CD player, equipped with a 5–13 inch LCD screen and Ethernet port. To present a uniform user-friendliness and interface, the switches on the operation panel and remote-control are also standardized, and the positions of the switches on these models are very similar. HDD capacity and other details will be announced in the New Year, they said.

Aiwa	Kenwood
Sharp	Sony
Pioneer	Schedule for terminals supporting Any Music
Remote-control by Aiwa and Kenwood. To achieve a uniform user-friendliness, the position of the switches is similar.	The service can be activated by pressing the “anymusic” switch on the top.

For the time being, as the firm is not yet established as an operating company, they cannot speculate when their business turns profits, they said. According to President Noguchi, “In order to run the platform, we are continuing talks such as license fees from those involved. We are also considering to bill content fees. “, but he also mentioned, “we cannot give any precision at this point in time”. As for a specific business model, he concluded that “we will explain about it after the operating company kicks off at the end of the year”

The top screen of anymusic

For the first generation, a component set model of the mini component type will be developed, but in the future, there are hopes for application equipment embedded with hardware provided by Any Music. The nominal price is estimated to be around 120,000 yen, and if mass production can be expected for the second generation, the price can be lowered to around 50,000 yen, they said.

The price of the contents to be distributed will be “decided by the copyright holder, in principle”. The content holder can freely determine the number of times check in/out allowed.

Any Music Planning will be present at the “A&V Festa 2003” event which will start on the 23rd, and it will continue its announcement efforts. The supporting hardware exhibited at the present meeting will be shown at the participating company booths.

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