James Delahunty
30 Aug 2005 14:14
The name "Rio" will always be remembered in the MP3 player market. The current owner of Rio, D&M Holdings is to quit the MP3 player market however, the company has announced. This comes after D&M Holdings sold its Rio division's technology and people assets to SigmaTel in July. The company then said it was "examining additional strategic options for Rio". Rio was originally part of Diamond Multimedia and was a true pioneer in digital music hardware. However the flash-based players were quickly overtaken by HDD-based players such as Apple's iPod.
In October 1998, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), joined by the Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies filed a complaint seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction against Diamond Multimedia's announced MP3 player device which sold for a price of $199. The RIAA claimed it had to file the complaint to protect its artists and the creative content of the music industry.
Hilary Rosen claimed that the MP3 player violated the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA), and in doing so "encourages consumers to infringe the rights of artists by trafficking in unlicensed music recordings on the Internet." However US District Judge Audrey Collins denied the injunction that would have halted Diamond Multimedia Systems, from distributing the player.
If that wasn't annoying enough for the RIAA, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling, and also found the Rio was not covered by the anti-piracy law invoked by the association. Being passed around from corporation to corporation didn't help the brand and the increasing growing competition including Creative Technology’s Zen players and of course Apple's iPod proved fatal for Rio. However, there still could be hope for the Rio brand as D&M said it was retaining the Rio name, and has a licence to use the MP3 technology now sold to SigmaTel.
Source:
The Register