[andygrif]

I'd agree with you about the compatability issues. The music industry shot itself in the foot with that one, and began alienating legitimate music loving and buying folk.

I wouldn't bet too much on the can't win argument though. Don't underestimate the Loudeye software, it is very powerful. The record companies are very likely to invest huge sums of money in this and other forthcoming 'p2p blockers'.

With regards to Sony hardware playing MP3 files - I think in reality they had little choice. Sony as an electronics manufacturer is having a really bad time right now - they keep missing some very important boats, such as portable music players (stop flogging the MD horse, it's dead!) and when everyone was opening flat screen factories, Sony ploughed more into CRT's.

They know that to compete with Apple and Microsoft and the raft of other portable music devices, they have to open it right out to other file formats. As long as they keep ATRAC as an option (it is one of the best audio compression formats available) in the same way as Apple has with AAC, then they are on to a winner, but they are in real danger of missing this boat too if they hang round much longer.