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Music Media

Mp3 Albums and Players Supported by Stars 52

Posted by CmdrTaco from the ain't-that-interesting dept.
Plinth writes "The BBC are running an article on MP3, and how it's being taken up by big rock stars, such as the ever current Pete Townshend. (CT:still waiting for his new live album to arrive) The meat of the story, however, is that Bill Wyman (of Rolling Stones fame) has released an album complete with mp3 player, which of course can be used to play other things as well." Its interesting cuz its got its own copyrighting system but afaict it plays straight MP3s too. I'm curious to learn more about this one.
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Mp3 Albums and Players Supported by Stars More

Mp3 Albums and Players Supported by Stars

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  • actually, the current netizen content grab syndrome could benefit artists greatly. if artists were to give away their music and/or sell it at a low price and turn their eyes about copying, they may see a rise in income from peripheral sources: especially touring and merchandise sales.

    If the record companies were out of the picture, and an artist could be contacted directly by a club owner or booking person, ticket prices could go down a LOT and the artist could make a lot more money. especially if more people had direct access to their music to find out if they like what they hear.

    thedave.
  • This [slashdot.org] old story "The Tao of Hacking Digimark" has some info about my investigations of other watermarking technologies.

    Yeah, hackerish types can play with em, and I reckon we can break the watermarks and have them sound virtually the same or better.

    Remember this? [soundandvisionmag.com] Not even experts can tell the diffrence all the time, so how can Joe Public do it?

    -- Reverend Vryl

  • They have the same policy, its a big reason why I like 'em. To take it a step further, there is the Phishcast. [umn.edu] streaming live shows 24 hours a day. A number of these type of streams have shown up (led zep, billy joel, weird al, TMBG, etc) although I would assume most are illegal. Recording companies need to realize that MP3 should be used for "promotion" (get 'em addicted, then jack up the price) and not sold as a product. Who do I call when my fictional $500 MP3 collection disappears when my fictional child accidentally wipes my HD? It just no longer exists, why pay for some that can disappear from reality so easily? The business world hasn't learned (nor has the government) to deal with infinite products
  • What the music industry wants to be able to do (all of this IMHO) is to limit the amount of music that is out there. Thus they can concentrate their advertising, payola (the growing practice of paying radio to play songs), and cut overall producing costs by making less music. This increases thier return and makes stockholders happy.

    Spice Grrls, Ricky Martin, Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock, if these are forced down your throat long enough (anybody listen to radio or watch MTV?) then you like them and buy them, repetition works, radio execs know this. Witness the recent CBS/Viacom merger (radio + MTV). This gives one company VAST resources to force millions to listen to the same music. It's not nefarious, it's designed to make money (remember that whole capitalism thing)

    Along comes the Inet and smashes their whole game. They are scared of tech they don't understand. They are scared of AOL, IRC, and ICQ where their products (and others, gasp) get huge distrubution without thier compensation. I think this is a good thing, Why? because it's obvious that the record companies wield WAY to much power. Look at the contracts nobodies have to sign to become somebodies. Remember the article on Sony "owning" artists URL's "for life"!

    MP3s help promote the Artists, they help promote variety in music, and bring cut throat competition to an industry that makes people think Britney Spears is anything other than a hottie.

    $.02 (or $2 if I was getting paid by the hour)
  • Thats probably because the artist's will make the money back when the people who got their MP3's come to their concerts, which, BTW, the Record label doesn't profit off of, they make money when its played on the radio, or sold in a music shop, so, an MP3, hurts their sales.
  • One of the highlights of the article in question was how the ever illuminating Pete Townshend was releasing his latest live album on the net to be downloaded for free (as in Beer.) This struck me as a "Good Thing (TM)", up until the point that I actually went to download the flaming thing. "*.wma". Feh!
  • How hard is it to negotiate a decent recording contract? Very hard. Have most artists been screwed by their labels in the past and wish to screw them back, selling direct to the fans and pocketing as much of the proceeds as possible? Yep.

    Direct sales of MP3s (if any cheap 'Net wankers would pay for them rather than pirate everything...), images, etc. would make it easier for musicians, artists, etc. to actually make a living at their first-choice profession of making beautiful and/or interesting works for public consumption. It could help the artists break free of a fairly repressive media system which rewards only a few superstars with mega-wealth for their efforts, and lets the rest languish in both obscurity and relative poverty. Very few performers get rich off their talents, direct Internet distribution COULD help more artists earn at least enough money to keep making their work, IF people were willing to pay rather than expect that everything be free.

    Many programmers who release their software for free make money off of consulting or supporting the software, or have other programming jobs. There are much fewer similar options for musicians and artists...

    However, the Internet public seems to be showing that they're almost as willing to screw the artist as the major media conglomerates... which is too bad.

  • I do feel that it is a good thing that online music is finally getting recognized and used by artists, but it looks like there is a fair share of improvment to be done.

    First of all, despite the article's heavy focus on mp3, the two artists noted for releasing online music (David Bowie and Pete Townshend) didn't even release their albums in that format. As several readers here have pointed out, Bowie released his album in *shudder* liquid audio, and Townshends album was in .wma format.

    But let me get back to mp3's. As of now, I imagine that new album releases are mp3 are likely intended to for use with portable mp3 players. As it seems with the amount of memory available on current players, (32 or 64 on the Rio), mp3 players expect that the user will encode their mp3's in a highly compressed and thus lower quality bitrate, like 96 or 128. Furthermore I havent found a major legal mp3 site which goes into detailed description about how they encode their mp3s (judging by their product support i bet they use *vomit* xing). I also doubt the artists or sites will care enough to encode their tracks at multiple bitrates and such to give consumers a choice. As a person who cares a lot about sound quality, I find this kind of dissapointing. Although I dislike the price of CD's, I do appreciate the control and choice I have in ripping and encoding my own mp3's. And if online downloads with only one choice of mp3 quality become the mainstream, the whole open nature of mp3s will be essentially void. I don't oppose mp3 releases, rather I think it's great to give the RIAA a run for its money, but I just hope the whole practice is given a little more time and quality consideration.
  • Gee, isn't this the concept that the Dead used for so long?

    Allow (even encourage) taping of the concerts. Then, allow free distribution of the tapes. The Dead created a huge demand for their concerts and they charged for them. Most fans didn't mind paying high fees (in reality, they weren't that high) because they had so many tapes and wanted to give something back to the band (and to peruse the drugs of course!).

    IMHO, the GD were so successful because they realized this! It is too bad that not every artist realizes this.

    Justin

    P.S. Which band allows free distribution of MP3s? =)
  • I used to like CDNow, but now I don't feel that way. According to their Toshiba DVD Player offer, you're supposed to get the player at the same price Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. charge, plus a $50 gift certificate, *almost* enough points for a free CD if you're enrolled in their rewards program, plus about six movies, none of which I care for -- still, it's a good deal, and ultimately a better deal to the tune of ~$100.

    That was two weeks ago, and I chose overnight shipping -- they haven't sent it yet. It took them two days to even acknowledge my order, then another two for them to tell me that the item was backordered... Hmm, that's a little strange, because when I visit the website and add it to my cart, it's shown as being: "In Stock Shipping Ctr A".

    I understand that they can't ship something if they don't really have it, but they *can* at least correct the information on their website, which I have pointed out via phone and several emails.

    Sun likes to mention that they "dot-commed" CDNow -- did CDNow forget to put the *thought* in "dot-com", or have I been "dot-conned"?
    --

  • If the greedy record companies could find a method to secure the data on, say, a UDF formatted CD-ROM, why not distribute albums in the form MP3s? If you want to release a normal length album, just use one of the 3.5" CDs (yes, they exist) which should easily hold an hours worth of music. That would cut costs even more, thus satisfying greed.

    Another thought: Complete Discographies on one CD. I've already done this with my Pink Floyd, Simon and Garfunkle, Beatles, etc... I just think it would really be cool to have it all on one CD from the record label. (For the packaging, you know!)

    I must say I do support the right of the artist to maintain control and profit from their music and works--as it is now, I think the record industry takes more money from the artists than pirated MP3sever could. Why not abolish the labels entirely, give the artists control of their music, and allow the artists to hire the labels mainly as promotional and manufacturing devices?

    Just a thought...


  • Music Industry = M$. Saves people thinking. (Score:3)

    by Butt ( 93557 ) on Sunday September 26, 1999 @02:57PM (#1658799) Homepage

    Here are some thoughts on MP3 and the music biz, which I sent to Nua [www.nua.ie]'s Trendmuncher list a while back, which may be of interest.

    I saw a strategy report about the "information superhighway" and its impact on the major labels which fell off the back of an ad agency a friend worked for. It basically discussed disintermediation and the opportunity for artists to go direct once they'd gained exposure via the labels. Labels have very little brand equity - the consumer doesn't care whether their favourite band is on Sony or PolyGram. The report recommended that labels take ownership of the musical brand, and to increase creation of "talent-independent brands", which I thought was pretty amusing.

    What happens to talent in this scenario? Niche markets are getting bigger, sure. These niche, virtual markets have always existed in some sense. The various forms of dance music take this to a new level, relying on home-recording and word-of-mouth marketing, and they're building new musical economies which operate outside the record industry distribution systems.

    But I don't think the labels are shaking in their boots around MP3. Sure, a large part of their business model is based on controlling distribution, and MP3 doesn't allow that. But neither does audio cassette tape. There's a lot of music in the world, and the labels have a powerful, vertically-integrated infrastructure (label-publishing-magazine-TV-Radio-retail-games-e tc.) for defining a consensus musical reality around a small part of that world of music. Working in music retail taught me that most music consumers do not want to filter through everything that's there to work out what they like, any more than they want to configure their computer operating systems or customise their car. Another factor is that music consumption is often a social experience - you want to be able to talk to your friends about the music you like, especially if you're a young person using music as one of your forms of subcultural differentiation. That requires consensus reality.

    Labels don't "discover talent" and release it. They supply well-defined and segmented markets with a measured stream of product. Sometimes talent exists with that product half-there, requiring only a bit of tidying up. Other times it's easier to sit some pretty girls down with a songwriter, a producer and a video-maker and generate it that way. Sure, not everything makes money, and occasionally something crashes into another market segment (like Gorecki). But generally the labels have a well worked out procedure for getting people to like and buy stuff, which isn't very "talent-dependent".

    I see popular music and MP3 as kind of analagous to cinema and video. The video revolution allowed wider distribution for a lot of new forms of "film-making", and even the opportunity for distribution of pirated home-taped versions of big name movies. But people spend more than ever on the experience of seeing a piece of Hollywood cinema when it comes out.

    The major labels and other big media companies understand that experience. They may not understand the Internet very well, but then neither does your average music consumer. Even if the labels take a year to get SDMI (or something like it) working, they've got enough mass properties locked up in tight contracts to make consumers want to pay for the experience of their product.

    My dad's fond of the expression "there's little in the world which can't be overcome by brute force and ignorance." The labels still have the brute force (global brand creation). They're starting to lose their ignorance.

    Danny

    Internet Commerce -- http://aerial.icvp.com [icvp.com]

  • This isn't offtopic - Rob himself makes mention of waiting for his CD (presumably from CDNow, since some of us are supporting his "Who habit"). Oops, I guess that makes this something of a rip on a /. sponsor. I didn't start it, tho'...
    --
  • The problem is that the players only support one type of media.. sound. If x11amp and winamp were to adopt a system which allowed the inclusion of diffrent content into the MP3 (like art, advertising, or links to additonal things to buy) and a few big name artists released MP3s with addiotnal information that people actually want (like lyrics or art), then everyone would start using a player which supports the addional content and artists could just give away music to get people's attention.. The artists could make lots of money this way.

    Jeff

  • Actually, from what I have heard SDMI watermarks will be audible, ie people with good equipment and hearing will take note. The point is that overwriting them will make an even larger degridation of the sound (of course, if you overright watermarked frames with a high degree interpolation it should make it sound better, but I don't know exactly how it works).

    And remember, these watermarks are not only going on downloadable music, but on all future CDs as well. If I was a Hi-Fi nut, I would be worried sick about this.

    Hardware devices will probably (at the very least) require that songs are signed by the RCIAA key (of course, SDMI has to be exportable from the USA, so we can just put distributed.net to cracking that :-) ).

    -
    /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.

  • MP3s will not be commercially viable until someone can come up with a way to make money off of them.

    There's already a way to make money off MP3s: charge for them. In the situation you described, it sounds like the problem had nothing to do with money, and everything to do with the contract that Mr. Petty signed concerning distribution rights.

    So I'de say this: MP3s will not be commercially viable until artists decide to increase their profits, instead of donating most of their profits to mass media companies.


    ---
    Have a Sloppy day!
  • For anybody who didn't know, They Might Be Giants recently released an mp3 only album. In addition they started their own streaming mp3 radio station and are starting to develop a strong partnership with Emusic [emusic.com]

    Check out the album, Long Tall Weekend, and radio station at:

    TMBG on emusic.com [emusic.com]

  • If they cleaned up their press releases, then "journalists" would be out of a job. Everyone knows that the job of journalists, these days, is to clean up and republish press-releases.

    My guess is that the errors are intentional, mandated by some sort of contract with a journalist union/guild. Job security.


    ---
    Have a Sloppy day!
  • I saw a commercial during south park tonight that advertised downloadable music online that has "mp3's of all your favorite music ..."
    looks like mp3 has gained enough momentum to steamroll the competing formats. The only remaining obstacle to squish is MS. I hope they lose their case with DOJ, or you'll soon see even more problems playing non-MS audio on your win* pc. Look at what a pain in the ass it was to get decent java and quicktime on windows. If the average joe can play windows audio, but not mp3, guess which format the commercial sites will use to sell music?
    -earl
  • Are you kidding? In Japan, this qualifies as superb English!!!

    Just do a search on "Engrish" to see the appalling level of practical English usage in this country.

    Blame it on the educational system which uses university entrance exams to select those who can best regurgitate mountains of irrelevant details.

    Graham
  • The player looks nice...it's about time that record comapnies and musicians in other countries stop worrying about piracy.

    Their US counterparts, however, are so worried about losing revenue that none of them are willing to release their music (legally) on MP3.

  • I thought the stars didn't matter... (Score:4)

    by Jerenk ( 10262 ) on Sunday September 26, 1999 @06:11AM (#1658811) Homepage
    As the subject says, I remember when Tom Petty released some of his songs on MP3, but his record company forced him to retract the MP3s.

    Overall, in the music industry, I believe that the artists do not feel threatened by MP3s (in fact, most probably love the concept), but it is the record companies that are scared to death of them.

    MP3s will not be commercially viable until someone can come up with a way to make money off of them. Until then, they will remain the currency of the underground.

    Justin

  • Information on the MP3 player (Score:4)

    by Seth Finkelstein ( 90154 ) on Sunday September 26, 1999 @06:19AM (#1658812) Homepage Journal
    The player has the uncreative name of Pocket Digital Audio [dynamicnakedaudio.com] and it's made by Dynamic Naked Audio [dynamicnakedaudio.com]

    Check out the specifications [dynamicnakedaudio.com] and press release [dynamicnakedaudio.com]

    - Seth Finkelstein

  • Even this article talks about using encryption to safegaurd against piracy. Since when can encryption safegaurd against piracy? Encryption can keep a secret between to parties
    that WANT to keep it, the nature of piracy is that one of the parties wants to spread the
    information.

    Right. So what if we have the "record-company" as one party, and "the hardware-mp3-player" as the other.

    If you embed a private-PGP-key into every player, you can make digital pirating almost impossible: you can only play the purchased MP3s on the one targetted MP3player.

    Now if that key is in the flash on a CPU in the device, which is programmed "not to give out the key", it can be pretty hard (i.e. not possible for people without an Electronic force microscope) to read out the key.

    This "security" creates some "hassle". Suppose I have two of those mp3players. Now I'd like to be able to play my paid-for albums on both. Problem.

    Maybe they encode it with one "generic" key. That however breaks down as soon as someone somewhere manages to find that key. Pretty weak. But it has been done before....

    Of course, you can still digitize the earphone output....


    Roger.

  • Hardware will always be an easy target... (Score:3)

    by Hobbex ( 41473 ) on Sunday September 26, 1999 @06:31AM (#1658814)

    As nice as this device seems to be (damn it looks cool) I simply don't believe that we will ever again see a good, free, mp3 player on hardware. Because hardware can only be designed and manufactured by companies (read litigation targets) and sold by distributors and outlets worried about retaliation from the sdmi bunch, it is doomed to all for their awful ideas of apropriation of information.

    Even this article talks about using encryption to safegaurd against piracy. Since when can encryption safegaurd against piracy? Encryption can keep a secret between to parties that WANT to keep it, the nature of piracy is that one of the parties wants to spread the information.

    What you can do through digital signatures and watermarks is mark WHO the original party spreading the information was. But from there you have to go the legal route...

    So, more laws, more lawyers, more easy ways for kids to commit serious crimes, more arguments for infringing on our freedom, and more kids going to jail.

    Don't fight with Mathematics. Its a really bad idea...

    -
    /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
  • I hate to be argumentative, OK so I don't but here goes. Most of the general populous does not give one shit about what happens to the artist or how much control they have over their music. The Backstreet Boys, Mariah Carey, and Spice Girls are proof of this. It is a very limited number of people who care about anything more than maybe requesting the latest Spice Girls song on the radio. The record companies will always be around, they will find a way to absorb MP3 and still keep the atrists under their thumb. Hate to break it to you, the artists themsleves are at fault for signing the contracts, the companies would not be in the position they are if the artists didn't play dumb when contracts came around.

  • MP3 could completely revolutionize the way things work with music right now. I would love to see MP3 be the reason that record labels were abolished, or at least cut down. It, in the end, gives more power to the artist. It is what people want. With the record labels gone, music could be exactly that, music; without all the crap the labels add to it. I would love to see that happen. MP3 is going to make that happen.
  • Oh, I don't know. With the continued proliferation, and perhaps more support from artists, we might be able to drive the record companies out of the issue entirely. After all, what stops the star from incorporating him or herself, and using that corporation to distribute his or her music online? Plus, I think many artists are becoming more infatuated with the idea of distributing their music on-line, even if its only a teaser or two from the album, just for the higher exposure. Give it some time...change is coming.
  • Plus, not all labels are "bad" or in any other way microsoft-like, just the huge and disgustingly overgrown ones. There are a lot of indie labels out there (ask your local college radio station) that love MP3 and anything else that makes it cheaper for them to get music out there. (Well, that and the fact they love anything trendy. :> )

    -Chris

  • There's already a precedent (Score:3)

    by Wah ( 30840 ) on Sunday September 26, 1999 @06:47AM (#1658821) Homepage Journal
    As nice as this device seems to be (damn it looks cool) I simply don't believe that we will ever again see a good, free, mp3 player on hardware.

    This is why the lawsuit over the Rio was such a big deal. They already established that it wasn't the hardware's fault about how it is used.

    I submitted a C|Net article [cnet.com] about how the partners in SDMI couldn't move as fast as the market and consumers don't want to wait for privacy protection (because it isn't in their interest), they want their MP3. Either way if somebody release one that limits what files you can play, and somebody else release one that doesn't (and is cheaper because it doesn't have extra layers), which would you buy?
  • Check what Sony previewed last week in Orbit '99 in Switzerland... Tiny MP3 player with Sony's memory sticks. They don't seem too worried about MP3!

    Unfortunately, David Bowie goes and releases his new album online using Liquid Audio [virginmegastore.com] Pitty...

    -kaputnik

  • Yes, we have them here too, but they came out about a year ago, and only cost $150 or so (around 80 or 90 pounds).
  • A company that doesn't even do a basic spell check on their corporate press release looses a lot of respect from me personally. Note: I can not spell very well myself, but then again, I'm not creating press releases for an industry.

    Dynamic Naked Audio,Inc. has developed the "Pocket Digital Audio." On 15 June 1999 we will launch the PDA in PC shops an dother electric consumer stores, as well as convenience sstores and record shops. This will be the first time. MP3 player is manufactured by a Japanese company.

    Pocket Digital Audio uses a stamp-sized storage media MMC (Multi Media Card) which can be used to store music data. We managed to produce the smallest palmsized MP3 player in the world, wiht outer measuerments of 46mm (W) x 53mm (H) x 16mm (D) and weighing just 30g. A new functional idea is condensed into this compact and cool body. It is also possible to reproduce digital music by the highest quality.

    The PDA is very strong and since all the drive portions are excluded, it is vibration and shock resistant. The PDA has 2 MMC slots which can reproduce a total of 1 hour of high quolity music.

    The MMC corresponds to ROS witch is said to be the next genaration audio media. ROS (Record On Silicon) is ROM specification of MMC, and it is the music software of the state where music data are already written in. Though the ROS, we are confident that the spread of MP3 players will not only be limited to be PC users.

    I probably missed some too?
  • First, this player may have a copyright system based on watermarking---the only really effective way to do it, so this may just be another attempt by the music industry to leverage SDMI. The whole idea of a watermarking system is to play mp3s which came from older CDs without the watermark and not play the ones that come from newer CDs. I will feal much better about this when we have reliable ways to break whatever copyprotection they install.

    Second, the real solution to making money off of MP3s is the allow the artist to add aditional content, i.e. allow them to place a small web page or something in the front of the MP3. If the players would have a feature to interpret a tarball in the header and pass it to a browser. Needless to say the open source players would all have a way to turn this off, but many people would want to see the art, lyrics, and ads that came with the songs. The artists will make money directly off the advertising (click here to visit our sponser) and will have a hotline to merchendising (click here to buy shirts, CDs, and other MP3 version of this song).. no radio stations.. no labels. Maybe someone will add this stuff when they improve the file formats.

    Jeff
  • As long as the big record labels control the supply of most popular music, they will still sit fat, whether the format is CD, MP3, DVD, or telepathically transmitted aural stimulation. ;-)

    What's really interesting about the record labels this decade is that they're trying to re-create the big music boom of the early 90s when record sales skyrocketed. However, there were a bunch of different factors that all came together to create the original boom:
    1. CDs became the popular medium, which had the advantages of being portable like cassettes, with the sound quality of LPs; this change was so great that not only was it a great format to buy new music on, but people went and bought on CD music that they already owned on other media
    2. the grunge/alternative and rap scenes went mainstream (rap at the end of the 80s, grunge at the begining of the 90s)
    3. A lot of good music was released within a small period of time

    Now record labels have been trying to find "the next grunge" for about 4 years (so far they've tried ska, electronica, 80s band greatest hits/comebacks, and Celtic rock), not realizing that the other factors were just as important.

    So how does that relate to MP3s? As soon as the record execs get their heads out of various bits of their anatomy about MP3s being too easy to pirate, they'll notice strong parallels between MP3s and radio. When popular music stations exploded in the 50s, the record companies were dead set against them; if you could hear popular music on the radio without paying for it, how could they make money from selling music recordings? Now, of course, we know how specious this argument was... in fact, radio has helped record companies more than any other phenomenon because they can dictate playlists and manufacture popularity for their artists.

    As long as the record companies can find a way of becoming the main distribution centre for MP3s of the artists who they want to be popular, nothing much will change.

    [TMB]
  • tarball? first you would need to get linux/unix as the dominate operating system, and I don't see that happening atleast not for a few years, and even more till tar becomes the standard. PS. I really don't like tar myself, why are we still using such old technology anyways.
  • Umm, did you read the article?

    I am more than happy artists are releasing their music in MP3, for obvious reasons, but the article states that the music will have copyright and piracy protection built in.

    They will be using the "if I give it a password it must be safe" security model which we all know is a bunch of BS.(Liquid Audio, MSAudio, etc...)

    The Really cool thing is that they are making players cheap enough to do this, and they will only get cheaper.

    The new players are seriously sweet, and some of the new ones like the Lyra have support for those IBM MicroDrives.....lots of space for lots of music.


    -Davidu
  • Just to set it straight. Pete Townshend album IS available in .mp3 format (and .wma too). The link is http://www.musicmaker.com, and you have to click on mp3 in the image, not wma, if that's what you want... And I'm with musicmaker so this might be advertising but it's information too. Or what?
  • Personally, I'd be a lot more inclined to buy the player if IT was called Dynamic Naked Audio.

    Joe
  • Erhm, actually winzip does a fine job of opening tarballs. It's actually a pretty good format, if there is an error in the middle you can recover both before and after that, and it allows you to have lots of metadata (ie., permissions, owner) about the file, in addition to supporting neat things like symlinks, etc. True, it's designed (and mostly used) under UNIX, but it's a decent format for any platform to use.

    It also features single-pass operation, something many other compression programs can't offer.

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