Committing significant resources.

In a Los Angeles press conference, IBM and Sony said they will collaborate to make Sony_s copyright protection technologies interoperable with IBM_s electronic music management system. Sony will configure an upcoming line of digital devices to play song files encoded using the IBM technology. They are entering the field a bit early, as the music industry is constructing its own standardized system for digitally downloading music. "I wonder if this is an attempt to influence the standard as their own," said K. Cassar, an analyst with Jupiter Communications in New York Cassar . Earlier this week, IBM and Real Networks announced an agreement to develop a new application that will allow users to download high-quality audio and video transmissions over the Internet and store them as files on their personal computers. Also, Real Networks announced that it would be buying Xing Technology, a company that develops softwarefor the MP3 format. And finally, Microsoft introduced Windows Media Technology 4.0, software that includes a player for consumers and tools to help musicians and providers of music encode their works and control their distribution over the Internet. All are efforts to mitigate the perceived damage being done to the industry by the illegal copying of music into MP3 files. MP3 is an essentially free technology that allows users to make digital copies of music that compresses into small files but produces near-CD quality sound. Cassar said the industry standard to be released in December will eventually drive the market, including the MP3 format. "MP3 will have to evolve to it in the long run," Cassar said. The record industry, a $13 billion business in the U.S., Cassar said, is reeling from the popularity of MP3. "They are committing significant resources," Cassar said.