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"AT&T Labs of Florham Park, N.J., and
Oberlin College Conservatory of Music have
announced an agreement to conduct research on
Internet music distribution. The collaboration will
archive and distribute compressed and encrypted
music for educational and research purposes. Other
terms of the agreement include evaluating the
quality of compressed music, multicasting and/or
broadcasting experiments of live music events, and
testing new uses of AT&T's licensed software. A
primary goal of the agreement involves the
downloading of music - one of the most popular uses
of the Internet among college students - to ensure
that this music is of the highest quality, and that
it is easily and quickly distributed while
protecting the rights of the recording artists.
Steve Crandall, principle member of AT&T
Lab's Human-Computer Interface Research Department,
said, "We believe that network delivered music will
be increasingly important as a larger portion of
the public is connected with high speed links. Our
research efforts have resulted in compression and
security schemes, but for further research and
development, we need to know how people use
networked music and how they hope to use it."
THE TECHNOLOGY
The Conservatory is utilizing AT&T's
Digitalphono music platform and player that
features the latest MPEG-2 AAC audio algorithm
standard, including audio compression technology
developed by AT&T Labs. Digitalphono is
available to all independent recording artists as a
platform to showcase CD-quality music securely by
using AT&T Labs' public key cryptography, which
makes it difficult for music on the Internet to be
played by anyone other than the purchaser.
"Mp3, wildly popular in universities, is
spreading to mainstream audiences," said Jim
Snyder, technical consultant at AT&T Labs. "The
audio quality is less than what we use, but many
people find it good enough. Yet because files are
unprotected, it can be easily distributed, which
creates compensation problems for the content
creators and owners. Our current technology,
MPEG-2AAC, provides strong copyright protection,
and we are working on techniques that may make it
more user-friendly."
Conservatory junior Paul Davis added, "We are
also interested in improving the quality of sound
and in expanding to multi-channel recording.
Testing is being performed at Oberlin to improve
the sound quality. We expect to have 'better than
CD quality' available in the near future."
WHY OBERLIN CONSERVATORY?
"Oberlin is the perfect partner in that it has a
large number of musicians as well as a student body
with high speed connections to the Internet," said
Crandall. "Students at Oberlin tend to be
discerning listeners of all musical genres and are
very receptive to good music from the most popular
to the most obscure artists. The Oberlin campus
will be an ideal laboratory for AT&T and the
Conservatory to develop future generations of
sound, distribution and security technologies.
Already, there have been some interesting debates
over some very tough issues - including
intellectual property rights - which is exactly
what we wanted."
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Crandall added, "We should stress that while
this research has very specific applications, we're
thrilled by unexpected turns and discoveries. This
is truly a relationship among peers and we are
delighted when the students offer ideas and
criticism."
Richard Povall, director of the Conservatory's
Division of Contemporary Music department and chair
of TIMARA (Technology in Music and Related Arts)
added, "I think we've already made an impact on the
way AT&T Labs views the use of this technology.
Our students made a very strong case that so much
security wrapping was a pain to use, and that the
visual look of the software was unappealing. All
manner of improvements have been made, although the
central core question regarding the necessity of
the security wrapping remains in dispute. The
research is obviously good for us and our students.
It's important that a conservatory explore work and
conduct research that is culturally and technically
on the bleeding edge."
ANCILLARY APPLICATIONS
- The Organ Project: digitizing a rare 19th
century book exploring the architecture of organ
design in churches throughout Europe (many of
which no longer exist)
- Networked musical collaborations
- Setting up an electronic reserve listening
archive for Music History 101 and other
courses
- Discussions centering on issues of
intellectual property rights, copyrights and
music distribution
- Projects with the Allen Memorial Art Museum
at Oberlin College (placing the museum's
catalogues on the Web), and with individual
departments
THE PARTNERS
It seems inevitable that AT&T Labs and
Oberlin Conservatory would meet to collaborate on a
revolutionary project. AT&T Labs, the research
and development unit of AT&T, is working to
create the information services and communications
network of the 21st century. AT&T Labs is a
leader in the development of technologies and
standards for audio, speech, video and image
processing; electronic commerce and digital
copyright management; search and directory
services; network architecture, design, engineering
and operations; and other technology areas critical
to the advancement of new and existing
telecommunications and Internet services.
Oberlin Conservatory, established in 1865, is
the country's oldest, continuously operating
conservatory and the only major music school in the
country linked with a preeminent liberal arts
college. The Conservatory boasts a long history of
innovation. It appointed America's first full-time
chair in music history and appreciation; created
America's first four-year college degree program in
music education; introduced the Suzuki method of
string pedagogy in the United States; pioneered a
program in electronic music; and is home to the
Otto B. Schoepfle Vocal Arts Laboratory, the first
of its kind to be incorporated into a program of
vocal instruction in America.
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