A baby-step in the right direction for the music industry

Just saw this article on one of my mailing lists:

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SanDisk Teams with Music Industry on New Music Format
by Paul Thurrott

Storage company SanDisk and the four largest music companies are teaming to create a new physical music format called slotMusic, which the companies hope will one day replace the audio CD. Based on the microSD flash-memory storage format that SanDisk created and sells in volume, slotMusic will provide consumers with a digital album, liner notes, lyrics, artwork, and various other extras.

The first 29 albums in the slotMusic format will be available in October through US retail giants such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart. The music will be sold in unprotected 320Kbps MP3 format, ensuring that the songs are compatible with every PC, device, and music-management software application worldwide. Albums are expected to cost about $15 each.

The new format is aimed primarily at cell phone users, many of whom already have an available microSD slot on their devices. However, because microSD compatibility isn’t common on PCs, the slotMusic albums will also come with a USB adapter so that customers can transfer the music to their PCs.

EMI, Sony BMG, Universal Music, and Warner Bros. have all agreed to test-market the new format. Albums by artists such as Leona Lewis, New Kids on the Block, Elvis Presley, Rihanna, and Weezer will be represented.

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I see a few problems with this new “format”:

–A microSD card is a hell of a lot easier to lose than a CD.

–MicroSD cards generally don’t “eject” the way regular SD cards do when you push on them.  This is fine for a cellphone, but if they want this to be the new format, they’ll need to incorporate some sort of “eject” mechanism for car stereos or other non-phone, non-PC equipment I would think.  Unless they’re assuming that by now, everyone uses their <insert mp3 player of choice here> in their cars, or that all car manufacturers are moving to in-car entertainment systems like Sync that have music storage built-in.

–Many cell phones require that you remove the battery just to get the MicroSD card in/out.  I know my RAZR and Blackberry 8830 are like this.  At a minimum, I think you have to turn the phone off to remove the card, or risk corrupting data.  Maybe I’m mistaken on that one, but that would make sense.

Maybe they’re just planning on people using the microSD card to transfer music to their phone, and not necessarily listen to the music directly from the microSD card.

Having said that, I do like that they’re releasing it in non-DRM MP3 format.  It’d be really nice if they would release it in some non-compressed lossless codec, but I guess it’s better than having silly DRM.

The article is light on details, but I’m sure we’ll hear more about it.  Anyone have any thoughts/insights on this new format?

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