Alta Vista's new media search

February 2000

The birth of the MP3 file format has led to a new need for search engines that can find the latest track from your favourite artist. MP3 makes it possible to compress large music files into a file that can be downloaded through a normal modem connection, the typical size being three to five MB per track. The success of the Fast/Lycos MP3 engine shows that there is a large market for this kind of search services. Alta Vista wants to be part of the game, and recently launched several new multimedia search facilities. These include:

• Three separate and targeted Search Centers for MP3/audio, video and images that enable users to conduct customized multimedia searches.
• Access to the latest broadcast clips and programming from leading media companies.
• More than one million MP3 files - according to Alta Vista the Web's largest library in a single central location.

You can access these services by clicking on the relevant tab on the Alta Vista home page: "Images", "MP3/Audio" and "Video". The MP3 page is well layed out, has a small directory of relevant websites, information on software and more.

Unfortunately, a large part of the music files on the net must be considered illegal pirate copies of CD-tracks. What do the search companies have to say to this? Lycos underlines that the content in the files is "determined entirely by other parties who make those files available on the Internet and those other parties are solely responsible for such content. (...) Lycos and FAST are merely providing access to such content as a service to you." To us this sounds as Lycos is serving stolen goods as a service to you. The Alta Vista disclaimer stresses that "(...) you may need to obtain authorization of the owner of such materials before using them." Very practical, indeed. We wonder what the record company lawyers will make out of this...

• Alta Vista press release
• Alta Vista Search
• Fast/Lycos MP3

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