MPEG Pioneer Heads Music Initiative

Showing that record companies are ready to embrace MP3 technology, the father of MPEG video-compression standards today will be named executive director of the Secure Digital Music Initiative. Leonardo Chiariglione is known for heading up the Moving Picture Experts Group, an international team that develops standards for digital-compression technology for video, audio and multimedia. The music initiative, announced in December, aims to create a secure digital architecture that would thwart online music pirates. A standard, expected by year-end, would also allow the $40-billion global record industry to sell music on the Internet. “This is proof that the music world was beaten, and required by the public to take MP3, and MPEG technology in general, seriously,” said multimedia expert Dan Lavin of research firm International Venture Associates in Burlingame, Calif.