Korean Music Industry Demands Poor Quality MP3 Phones

Manufacturers like Samsung and LG are of course resistant to the idea, but the Korean Association of Phonogram Producers (KAPP) and Korean Music Copyright Association (KMCA) are demanding that new phones can only play MP3 music at low-fidelity, radio quality.

This demand is after a compromise – KAPP and KMCA originally required phones to only play MP3 files that had been purchased legally. In a market where 95% of MP3 files are said to be illegal, phone manufacturers felt that this would put consumers off.

The battle has become so embittered that Samsung has decided to delay the launch of their new MP3 Anycall handset.

Amid claims that MP3 players and pirated CDs have halved the value of the Korean music market, phone with music playback are expected to be extremely popular – there will be 150 new phones launched in Korea next year, and half the population already carry a mobile.

Yoon Seong-woo, a director of the Korea Association of Phonogram Producers said in a statement: “Our industry has been in a nose-dive since the release of MP3 players in 2000. At that time, we felt hopeless because Korean people were insensitive to copyright issues and we did not have any unified organization that could cope with the situation. Because the MP3 phone market is big enough to destroy the music industry, we’re struggling to defend it.”

It’s somewhat striking that the music industry should expect handset manufacturers to develop and sell inferior product to save their dwindling sales.

There are no currently legal download music services in Korea – surely giving consumers the option of buying music from an attractive, easy to use, reliable source would be far better? Samsung certainly think so and is looking to partner with a music site to provide a download service for its phones.

The Korea Herald on the story

Simputer Finally On Sale

With computer ownership in India running at ~0.9%, the market for a cheap device to get users on the internet and provide them with email and note taking software is potentially huge. Enter Bharat Electronics and the Amida Simputer, the first computer to be designed and manufactured in India.

Sadly, the development and launch of the device was hampered by a lack of interest and investment by large computer manufacturers.

With a 206MHz processor, six hours of battery life and 64mb of Flash memory, it’s a lot like a PDA – and is ideal for bringing the internet to rural India. The cheapest of the three models has a monochrome screen, but with pen input interface and Linux OS it’s just like an early Handspring. Apart form understanding Hindi and Kannada, the interface is purely point and click – the Simputer Trust believes that this will increase accessibility: “It has a special role in the third world because it ensures that illiteracy is no longer a barrier to handling a computer.”

Internet access is through a land line or Reliance CDMA phone – the browser is fully-featured and beautifully thought out. It even allows tabbed browsing! Connectivity is through two USB ports – so owners can expand memory with a USB key and connect it to other devices: a very neat solution.

Retailing at US$240 for the basic model, sales projections are still modest at 50,000 in the first year – we hope that this device takes off as the potential is staggering and we can’t wait to see what new uses people think up for it, and create with it.

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