Patent ID: 6437229
Filing Date: 2002-08-20
Classification: G11B

Abstract:
A digital music storage and reproduction apparatus comprising:a digital music server; a digital music station; at least one listening station; and a network for interconnecting the music station; wherein the digita music station further comprises a personal computer (PC) including a compact disk reader (CD-ROM) and bar code reader, and digitizes a predetermined passage of each track from a CD, thereby converting it into a MPEG-1, layer 3 (MP3) format file and storing the digitized music in a database in the digital music server, the computer further including software which controls digitizing the music, wherein for each digitized CD, a record is entered in the database with the information from the CD, the computer further including a maintenance software which (1) prevents entering duplicate versions of already digitized music, (2) updates data related to the CDs stored in the database (3) generating of a summary of the changes made during a predetermined period of time to enable (4) updating correspond systems in other locations, updating local digital music server utilizing changes that have been made at remote digital music servers, and accessing statistics for selected CDs over a predetermined period of time.