Is it true that HMV are going to have all their singles online

Asks Felix

A. It is not strictly true, but it has taken steps to head off some of the threat posed to high street record shops and record labels by the Internet. In November 2001 it announced a deal with the Tornado Group that will enable it to send singles, albums and games (all in digital format) direct to your home PC, once you have paid for them via their UK website.

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Q. Who are Tornado and what do they do

A. Tornado was set up in 1999 by its three directors who saw a gap in the market for downloading copyrighted material from the Internet. Since then new technologies like WAP and ADSL have accelerated the adoption of digital downloading as a popular and cool way of receiving entertainment - and as a result the popularity for Tornado's patented technology has soared. So far it can count record companies EMI and V2, and computer games publishers Rage and EIDOS among its customer base.

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The Tornado Group is now Europe's leading digital service provider, and through its deal with HMV it will provide HMV with the technical infrastructure to sell its products online. To do this, Tornado's Digital Media Distribution System (DMDS) will be employed.

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Q. Why is Tornado's technology so popular

A. Tornado realised that as more and more people became Internet savvy, the demand for purchasing and downloading entertainment products e.g. music, games, films and software, increased. But traditional media companies continued to be behind the times in keeping up with new technology and in keeping any type of control over their products and how they were distributed over the Internet, and as there was no control over copyright and security they continued to drag their feet in making any commitment to e-commerce.

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At the same time, there was a real difficulty in collecting revenue from digital content. The general feeling in traditional media companies was why invest in the Internet and selling products digitally over the Internet when there was no control over copyright, security and guaranteed revenue. Tornado, stepped into the breach and has solved all these problems at once. It set up a technical infrastructure that provides content owners and retailers with a complete solution - it provides the technology to distribute and sell digital content online within a secure environment on a global scale.

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Q. What is DMDS

A. DMDS is a business-to-business application that provides a link between content owners and retailers, while at the same time remaining invisible to the end-user.

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DMDS collects, stores and delivers digital products, provides high-level security and encryption, digital rights management and payment accounting systems - in real terms this actually means that when you visit the HMV website for example, you can purchase and download a digitally stored product from a virtual catalogue of products. This is then delivered instantaneously (i.e. in real time) to your PC, mobile phone, PDA, TV or portable music player (basically what ever access platform you choose). The system works for both the customer and retailer because it appears really easy to use to the customer, while at the same time the retailer has complete control over the sale of its product.

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Q. I can see how the customer is happy - they get the material they want immediately after they have paid for it, but how does the retailer and content owner actually benefit

A. Apart from providing a fast digital download of their material, the retailer benefits from the fact that the Tornado system employs open architecture which means that it is designed in such a way that it can incorporate any existing in-house system e.g. customer databases, marketing strategy, payment schemes etc. into its design. Tornado provides full technical support and incurs all the bandwidth for the digital downloads - so it takes away all the headaches of providing and maintaining an Internet service that sells content.

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For content owners, Tornado's system incorporates sophisticated digital rights management (DRM) that includes a proprietary payment system - which means that the appropriate fees and royalties are collected and distributed in the correct proportions to the right owners. The DRM also allows the content provider to set their own usage rules for downloads e.g. whether a file can be re-installed, passed to a friend, copied to disk or exported to a portable player.

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Q. When will this new service be available on the HMV website

A. No definite date has been agreed yet, but it is believed that it will be around May-June 2002.

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If you would like any further information on the Tornado Group go to www.tornadogroup.com.

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If you have any other Internet & Technology related questions, please click here

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By Karen Anderson