Music Labels Vs. Apple: CMX Emerges

Music format’s go to war with an Apple Cocktail.

You can viscerally see the cut-throat action between these two formats. First we heard two weeks ago that Apple was playing the good-doer in an attempt to lift the poor, befuddled, out-of-date record companies from poverty and actually start collaborating with them. They were working diligently on a project called “Cocktail” which aims to revitalize the days of old when you would put on an album and chill out.

This new file format would be a mixture of RAR, Shockwave and Flash file formats by incorporating things like track lists, original artwork, lyrics and genuine interactivity all packaged within an entire album as opposed to single tracks which has become the industry standard.

This sounds like Apple is on the right track! Only there’s a problem. The Guardian recently interviewed the four record labels: Sony, Universal, Warner and EMI and things weren’t so rosy on their end.

“Apple at first told us that they were not interested, but now they have decided to do their own, in case ours catches on,” the labels told the Times. “Ours will be a file that you click on, it opens and it would have a brand new look, with a launch page and all the different options. When you click on it you’re not just going to get the 10 tracks, you’re going to get the artwork, the video and mobile products.”

Which is interesting considering the first project name reported was “Cocktail” which Apple still retains. If Apple wasn’t interested at all, why do they still retain the initial project name? This either reeks of the old-school Xerox project swiping that Microsoft did back in the day or there is a lie somewhere within these statements.

A possible alternative is that Apple realized that this type of project would be extremely beneficial considering their new, rumored Apple-tablet.

We’d say it’s 1-0 in favor of Apple. We’ll keep you updated on what comes to pass.

Related articles on CMX:

• Apple and record labels to release competing enhanced album formats (tuaw.com)
• Major labels preparing new digital album format (guardian.co.uk)
• The Album Is Dead and Your Stupid CMX Format Won’t Bring It Back, Record Labels [ITunes] (gizmodo.com)