With record companies facing hard times, they are always on the lookout for ways to charge people for downloading music from the Internet. A recent patent from Thomson of France, which owns RCA in the US, might help (WO 03/012775).
Instead of being stored as a single MP3 file, the online track will be split up into several files. One contains a simple melody line as a teaser, and could be made available cheaply or even for free. Other files might add lead vocal, backing vocals, percussion or guitar. When downloaded and played together, the tracks give a complete…
