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[FYI] "MS sabotages MP3 quality under Win-XP"
- To: debate@fitug.de
- Subject: [FYI] "MS sabotages MP3 quality under Win-XP"
- From: "Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>
- Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 12:35:52 +0200
- Comment: This message comes from the debate mailing list.
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- Sender: owner-debate@fitug.de
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/18276.html
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MS sabotages MP3 quality under Win-XP
By: Thomas C Greene in Washington
Posted: 12/04/2001 at 16:25 GMT
Being an OS monopolist has its privileges, and making the competition
look bad on your ubiquitous desktop has to be one of the sweetest. So
it comes as no surprise that the Redmond Beast has apparently decided
to equip Windows XP with second-rate MP3 software, thereby limiting
the recording and playback quality of MP3 files which compete with
its Windows Media Audio.
According to a superb story in today's Wall Street Journal, MS "plans
to severely limit the quality of music that can be recorded as an MP3
file using software built into the next version of its [PC] operating
system, Windows XP. But music recorded in the Redmond software
company's own format, called Windows Media Audio, will sound clearer
and require far less storage space on a computer."
Microsoft's cover story for this diabolical bit of market extortion
is that it merely wishes to protect copyright holders by pushing an
audio format with superior digital rights management capability, and
spare itself the onerous burden of a $2.50 license fee for a deluxe,
high-fidelity version of MP3 recording software.
But Journal clearly isn't buying that line. "The industry doesn't
want [MP3] pushed, and Microsoft and RealNetworks don't want it
pushed. The consumer is going to eat what he's given," the paper
quotes former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chief
technologist David Farber as saying.
[...]
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