Sony Finally Recognizes That No One Is Going To Go With ATRAC

from the took-'em-long-enough dept

Wed, May 10th 2006 7:37pm — Mike Masnick

It's been well over a year since Sony's Ken Kutaragi admitted that Sony had made a huge strategic error in pushing its proprietary ATRAC music format (complete, of course, with copy protection). However, from admitting it to actually doing something about it takes time. Reports are coming out now, saying that Sony is going to allow its music players to play AAC formatted songs. A lot of the press seems to reporting this as Sony adopting "Apple's" audio format -- but that's not really accurate. AAC is a standard, not an Apple proprietary format. Apple does use a proprietary copy protection system called FairPlay on the songs it sells from iTunes -- and they refuse to let anyone else offer FairPlay compatible systems... including Sony. So, this doesn't actually mean you'll be able to play iTunes music directly on Sony systems. It just means Sony is finally recognizing that their products need to play additional formats.

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6 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 10 May 2006 @ 8:20pm

about time
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DittoBox, 10 May 2006 @ 8:44pm

What's with the blank comments
What's with all these anonymous comments that are blank?
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Anonymous Coward, 10 May 2006 @ 9:17pm

Re: What's with the blank comments
?
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martegod, 10 May 2006 @ 9:35pm

i really never liked that format.
thats why i got me an Ipod. HAAHAH my Net MD is dusting up in a drawer.
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Galley, 11 May 2006 @ 4:09am

More AAC love!
I'd definitely be interested in a Sony player to replace my aging iPod, but I've already got a cellphone and a LifeDrive that play AAC. Sony should've done this years ago.
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Paul`, 13 May 2007 @ 1:27am

Why Sony or Ipod?
I dont see the point on buying any player that oushes its own file format. I got a generic brand mp3 player over a year ago from Target and it has outlasted and outplayed my old sony, sansa and shuffle.
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