Marc Canter did answer my question about his relationship with Gerry Kearby... they were tight back in Gerry's digital audio workstation days.
So, have people checked out the Windows Media 9 beta? Please do, and then you'll be able to better understand the MSFT-LQID deal. Liquid is being acquired by Alliance Entertainment, the owners of the All Music Guide. WMP 9, in its current form, functions as a world-beating front end to AMG. Not only does it fulfill standard CDDB-like functions (song/album identification), it also links to album cover art, artist bios, changes XP folder icons to reflect content... and stores links to the data as local XML.
The combined Alliance/LQID, functioning as the distributor for WMA content, will offer the most compelling chance, by a long-shot, for any DRM-based format to succeed in the marketplace. User experience is worlds beyond any currently available, or demonstrated, alternatives. Music would be sold through music retailers, as Liquid is doing now, but with the full cooperation of MSFT and the industry.
The sad part: this solution was documented and presented at LQID at the end of 2000. Microsoft was always open to a deal that involved Liquid Audio dropping their proprietary format and becoming the primary distributor of WMA content... in fact, they probably are the largest distributor of such content already. Gerry's arrogance and the short-sightedness of the engineering team ensured that the deal was not pursued at that time... they could have had the deal with MSFT and kept the company as well...
"I told you so" doesn't mean much at this point, does it?
11:26:24 AM 
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