InterTrust solution sweet music to RIAA

E-commerce company InterTrust has been invited to attend the Record Industry of America Association's (RIAA) Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) meeting because it claims to have a solution to the music industry's dilemma over downloadable music.

"We have technology that could be very helpful in solving the RIAA's problem," said InterTrust's managing director Douglas Armati.

InterTrust has been invited to attend the first formal meeting of the SDMI on February 26 in Los Angeles. SDMI was born out of the music industry's frustration with the ever-increasing popularity of MP3, the format which allows music to be downloaded from the Internet.

There has been much speculation as to the standard the RIAA will adopt in its effort to secure the distribution of music on the Net.

Armati admitted the decision may not be taken for at least nine months but described the relationship between the RIAA and InterTrust as "good."

"We are not a start-up company and our technology has been 10 years in development," he said. Armati admitted there will be a lot of other companies offering similar technology, but believes there are big advantages with the InterTrust format.

"This technology offers much more than just securing music. IT is a platform solution and could be bundled with other services. People don't want multiple secure systems running on their PCs."

Despite the popularity of music on the Internet, George Michael has failed to make a profit with his Internet site. Aegean Net has made a loss of £271,290 it is reported.