August 26, 1999 Web posted at: 2:22 p.m. EDT (1822 GMT) by Dorte Toft

From...

(IDG) -- Liquid Audio, a provider of secure music downloads from the Net, has announced its new Liquid System 5.0, which includes support for the popular MP3 format.

Liquid System 5.0 supports the company's original standard for music compression, AAC (Advanced Audio Compression) as well as other major standards such as MP3 (Moving Picture Experts Group, Audio Layer 3), RealNetworks' RealAudio and Dolby Digital.

Also, the company said in a written statement that it plans to support the proposed SDMI (Secure Digital Music Initiative) standard for copyright protection.

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Consumers can get a preview of the new Liquid Player 5.0, which is part of the new release, by downloading it from Liquid Audio's Web site.

The player is used for selecting tunes and downloading them from more than 200 online retailers using Liquid Audio's server software to connect to the Liquid Music Network. The network contains free tunes as well as 20,000 protected tunes that can be purchased online.

Liquid Audio, based in Redwood City, Calif., was among the pioneers in music downloads from the Net using its own AAC standard. However, when downloading music from the Net caught on with consumers, MP3, which was a new standard used for free downloads, became more popular, driven partly by the availability of portable MP3 players.

Today more than 500 music labels have signed contracts with Liquid Audio.

Dorte Toft writes for the IDG News Service in Boston.